What am I missing about Vistara's pricing?

Earlier today, I read about Air Vistara's corporate upgrade offer. Basically, if you're booking a ticket through your corporate's travel agent, you will be upgraded to the next class of service (premium economy or business) if you book an economy or premium economy ticket in the "Flexi" fare category.

Though Air Vistara doesn't fly (yet?) to Chennai where I'm based, this sort of deal is something I'd be able to swing in my favour if the route worked for me. Particularly so because most of my travel is booked in the 24-48 hours before actual travel (when prices tend to head north).

So I decided to look things up. And I found something strange.

I'll be the first to admit that I may be comparing apples to oranges out here. That said, I'd like to reiterate my personal context: I book my travel so late that the chances of cancelling are quite remote. With that perspective, just take a look at these examples below.

These screenshots were taken on the night of 21 July 2016, so please consider them accordingly.

Vistara fare rules

The first thing I'd like for you to look at, is the fare rules for the various fare types that Vistara offers.

Other than the differences in the max stay period and baggage allowance (neither of which are likely to be significant factors for business travelers), the key differences are the fees: change fees, no-show fees and cancellation fees. The most important thing to note here is, that the fees for Economy Saver are identical to the fees for Premium Economy Saver. 

And for a promotion like this to work, the Economy Flexi fares should offer significantly more benefits that the Premium Economy Saver fares. Do they?

Now, for the fares

So assuming I did book flexi fares in order to get what seems like a guaranteed upgrade to the next service class, I decided to look up fares for random dates and random sectors. 

Here's where things started to weird me out.

First, India's busiest sector, BOM-DEL, which route operates over 60 flights each day, all airlines total. The date here is a little over a month out.

Premium economy saver is actually cheaper than economy saver.

OK, maybe the dates are too far out. How about next week?

Same story.

OK, the sector is so busy that nothing but tomorrow's flight (it's already past 10 pm tonight, so no point searching for today's flights) will show high fares.

Sure enough, premium economy saver class has very few seats left on pretty much each flight. That said, the fares are still lower than economy saver class.

OK, possibly wrong sector. How about some other samples? Maybe Delhi-Bhubaneshwar?

How about Goa? (Admittedly, the return sector shows the same pattern as earlier, though in all fairness, the onward sector was priced differently.)

Finally, paydirt! On the Delhi-Bangalore sector (with some exceptions!).

Here's my take

Very simply I can't profess to make sense of this. 

Saver category is consistently priced lower in premium economy class than in economy class. And Economy Flexi (which offers the promise of an upgrade to premium economy) is consistently priced at a 40%+ markup over Economy Saver fares. 

For a traveler with my booking pattern (pretty much last 48 hours) and cancellation pattern (largely, none), this makes no sense whatsoever. Why on earth would I pay over Rs 11,500 for an economy flexi fare, when I could as well pay Rs 5,141 on a premium economy saver ticket, which is still cheaper than an economy saver ticket at Rs 5,600? 

Beats me.

Mind you, I've tried several other sectors which I haven't published screenshots of, which point to the same thing - Premium Economy Saver is cheaper than (or at least very close to) Economy Saver prices, and far far higher than Economy Flexi prices.

Word in the industry is that Vistara's Premium Economy segment didn't work out as planned. And so they're offering those seats relatively cheaper, to get folks to buy them. Fair enough. But why have a promotion which, at least going by the sample scenarios above, is clearly so shallow and, dare I say, shameful?

Conclusion

To be fair, business class fares are generally so much higher, that it does make sense to purchase Premium Economy Flexi fares in the hope of the complimentary upgrade. That said, this is one post that definitely won't find itself categorised under the Promotions tag.