Africa - Full fare economy fare Nairobi to Sydney

This is my first post, so apologies in advance if I am doing something wrong.

My organisation gives the cash equivalent to the full economy fare using the most direct route when I go on home leave.

I am completely confused because when I was based in New York travelling to Sydney in June, 2009, I was quoted USD 9997. For Nairobi to Sydney, I've been quoted something around USD 4000.

Now my travel agent tells me that I the entitlement is based on the YIF fare of USD 4482, which they say is applicable for any airline within the mileage limit but when I call Emirates, they say the full fare economy is (fare basis code YRT1KE7) is USD 8455 and that they don't accept YIF fare-basis tickets. South African has quoted me USD 4361 (fare basis YSERT) for what they say is full fare economy

Can anyone help out on this. Can anyone give me a definite answer on which code(s) constitute a full economy fare. Does it make sense that the full fare economy is so different for SA vs. EK? Does it make sense that the amount of my entitlement between New York and Sydney is so different to that of Nairobi to Sydney.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Welcome to FlyerTalk. I'm going to move this to TravelBuzz! and see if perhaps the kind folks there might be able to assist.

l'etoile
senior moderaor

Welcome jepponyc

The YIF fare is indeed the Generic IATA Fares (YY) ie the unrestricted full fare economy between NBO and SYD. The equivalent fare JFK-SYD is $US6758 so I don't know what fare was being used to work out your reimbursement of $US9997 in 2009 but it was not the YIFRT.

Its not at all unusual (in fact its the norm) for fares to be wildly different in different markets. As an example the the YIFRT GRU-SYD is $US6094 and SYD-GRU is $US10221. SIN-GRU prices around $US11000 while KUL-GRU is just over $US8000.

I can't say that I completely understand the nuances of the YY fares - eg while they are unrestricted it seems that individual airlines can opt out of participating in particular fares. The fact that EK files a full economy fare at almost twice the cost of the IATA YY fare suggests to me that these YY fares are in practice used very infrequently and are often not updated/revised for years. The NBO-SYD YIF fare seems to have been filed in June 2008.

NBO-DXB-SYD is well under the MPM of 10320 miles for the fare, so that doesn't seem to be the issue with this fare and EK