KLouis

I booked a CDG-HER flight for late September (part of a MR to keep my FB miles; I digress ) with "one seat available" indicated in the site. This one seat, in both Flex and GoLight, was in fare class T. Needing to fly that very date, I booked it immediately, although I may soon (23 November!) need all available M+B miles this year to re-qualify (less travel). Well, this morning I see that this "one seat available" is still available, and this in fare class S for only 20 € more. Obviously I call Aegean and I'm told by the -always- friendly agent that in order to change the booking from T to S they'd have to cancel my non-refundable ticket and issue a new one. A change of my GoLight ticket would only be possible in the same fare class...

True, this is indicated in the GoLight Fare Family Rules, but the fact that you can't change your ticket into a more expensive one is, in my mind, a shear stupidity.

Knobbgb

It wouldn't have been the same "one seat" available. That means one seat was left in that particular booking class and now there's only one left in the next class, not one in total. I agree that there aught to be a function to buy-up to the booking class you require, but maybe they think that would over complicate the web interface for some people. The easy way around it is to use a second browser window to make a dummy booking on the last seat(s) in a class and then go back to your original where the higher class seat will now be offered. I do this a couple of times per year and it works a treat. Too late for you now, but good information for next time.

EDIT: If you're willing to spend 50 Euro plus the 20 Euro fare difference, you can probably still change the ticket to S class online. It's probably not worth 70 Euro for those extra miles though.

Oh, and in case any body's interested in seeing how far they are from a seat in a higher earning class, I THINK the order of fare buckets on Aegean goes like this, in this order:

75% - P U T 100% - S K L W H 125% - B M Y

(there might be others in-between that middle group but I've never noticed them. They're listed on the website but are probably for no revenue tickets). So T to S (and maybe H to B) are good points to try to get a higher class with little fare difference.

witlesspax

Good trick. How far do you have to get in the dummy booking to temporarily consume the seat?

Sure would be nice if you could easily buy up to a more expensive class (or call to get it changed with no booking fee) though.

Xandrios

The reason why they do not let people buy up is to enforce their fare rules. Otherwise you could do the following:

- Book a very cheap flight that does not allow cancellation
- Upgrade to a slightly more expensive fare that does allow cancellation
- Cancel the flight and get a refund while your original ticket did not allow that to happen

KLouis

You can't! I was explicitly told that an "upgrade" from T to S requires a new ticket to be issued. And there would be no change of the ticket as such, as flight and date would stay the same. It's a no-win situation.

Only semi-logical: if they had offered the possibility to book in a slightly more expensive fare class I would have done it. Also, yesterday, both Flex and GoLight were in T while today they were both in S. This is not even semi-logical for me.

I think that this is the result of someone who built/changed the whole system without understanding the realities of flying. Although a very different situation, similarly stupid to the impossibility of somebody residing outside Athens to book a long haul award ticket, except for during the summer!

Arrivals

Hi KLouis! Have you tried to rebook the ticket yourself by "changing" the flight to the same date and hour? I've tried this several times and was shown the higher class for the named price difference + changing fee, never went through with it, though.
Also, the call center agents are able to book any fare for you on the phone. I asked for that some years ago, but then it was way more expensive than what the OTA offered.

That's true. But A3 could allow to change within the same type, i.e. changing the class within GoLight or Flex. A3 would benefit by making more money and the passenger by earning more miles. Win-Win, right?

malmostoso

Which generally does not work: even if you "upfare", the original cancellation and refund conditions remain applicable. This is specified in the fare conditions.

KLouis

Yes, I just tried it and it works! Amazing, you pay 50 € more in order to may them another 22 €. Anyway, thanks a lot for the tip!

As I wrote in the OP, this is due to the fact that they cancel the ticket and issue a new one...

witlesspax

I think what Arrivals meant was that at time of initial purchase if you do it on the phone you can select a higher fare at that time. If confirmed to be what was meant, that seems like a decent solution to me.

Arrivals

Thanks! Exactly. You can ask the agent to select your preferred class by booking initially over the phone. Though I'm pretty sure, it is more expensive, than it should be. You can look up the fare for the preferred class using the matrix. Finally, it worked for you (KLouis). Although and that was my point, A3 charged an additional 50 € for rebooking the same ticket within the same fare type...

KLouis

I also thought of calling them yesterday, and it was not the 20 € that prevented me from doing so but the "one seat available" label: i interpreted this to mean that it was the last free seat on the flight. I learned my lesson, and this after more than 500 flights with A3...

Knobbgb

Just click "book ticket" or whatever. At that point the system should block out the seat temporarily - you don't even have to enter any personal details.

Yes, that's what I meant - sorry I didn't explain properly.

Does anybody know if it's still possible to use the other "trick" that was mentioned here some months ago? That was to book tickets through the UA website. I believe that although they don't actually offer codeshares, it is/was possible to book A3 flights there and use their tool to explicitly request a higher fare class. This is purely something I heard - I never tried it. Is that possible?

gpb_croppers63

I must admit I haven't booked an A3 flight this way, as I normally need them on 390 stock for upgrades but they certainly show up on the UA website, and this trick does work perfectly for LH group airlines. UA also don't charge the "optional payment fee" so you can actually book LH/OS/SN/LX tickets cheaper via UA than via the respective airlines. Sometimes you can even get a free "hold" on the ticket by saying you want to pay in cash, which creates the reservation with a 24 hour ticketing deadline normally. You can then go back online later and enter your payment details. This option isn't always available though for some reason. All-in-all, UA is a very good way of booking Star Alliance tickets. The obvious caveat is that they own the ticket so have to be contacted if there are schedule changes or you need to make changes to your booking. The quality of agents can vary when you call UA to say the least!

Edit: for more info on the problem I had changing a flexible LH ticket booked via UA, see my post here

Hope that helps.

Xandrios

My experience has been less positive. The few times that I tried to book Austrian flights through UA the price either jumped up at the last step (but then, after searching again, went back down), or, an unknown payment error would show up.

In theory their website would be great for booking *A fares, in practice I have not had much luck with it personally.

clifford79

I booked an LH S fare for some intra-European flights on the UA website in order to be able to collect some A3 miles earlier this summer, and at the time it was only 30e more expensive than the cheapest option available at lh.com and OTAs. In the end, 30e for 2000 tier miles was a good deal for me.

I tried it later for an LX fare also, but this time the cheapest mile-earning fare was significantly more expensive.