Qualiflyer - How can I reach Swiss yield management?

This is a tough question, but that's what FlyerTalkers are so great at answering. I hope you can help me.

In May, I used US Airways miles to book 2 award seats in F on LX 289, JNB-ZRH, on Thursday 5 December. I'd prefer to fly on Saturday 7 December, but no F award seats have ever been available that day, even though availability on ITN shows F9 J9 C9 D9 Y9 M9 L9 H9 K9 B0 V0. (Oddly, it shows F0 for the day I'm already booked -- 5 December.)

What has been your experience with award seats on Swiss? Will more F seats be released for award reservations as the departure date approaches? Can I get through to yield management to ask them to add 2 F seats on 7 Dec? Can US Airways (where I'm a mid-level elite) make that request for me?

I've also been told I can not stand by on 7 Dec... otherwise I'd just do that. Anyone know why? Oh, and what's the fare class for F award seats?

Thanks for your advice!

David

The booking class for F-class award tickets is A. According to Gallileo (http://www.aeroplan.de/ap_rb_galileo.htm , unfortunately in German) the booking situation in Dec. is the folowing for JNB-ZRH:

Dec 1st2nd3rd4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.13
A 6 6 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7
F 9 9 9 8 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9

I bet the formatting goes wrong with this!!
i.e. no award seats around the time you want to go any more. I find F award (A) tends to open up nearer departure if they don't sell F. (Great for last minute First Class award "emergencies", A is usually the last of the award classes to go (C=Z and Y=V) and often available until just before the end of check-in).
Standby for awards is only for Qualiflyer Travelclub ( & TCGold) members (on LX), even then Qualiflyer don't offer it actively, I haven't had much luck with that in the past. - I doubt USAirways can help you there. The best thing is to monitor the situation yourself (have another look say once a week in October / November time) and once the correct number of "A" places appears, get US to change your booking.
Rgds
(With the above aeroplan Gallileo address, use DDMM date format and the usual airport and airline codes, unclick the "Klartextanzeige" box)

Thank you so much, Marvin! When I use aeroplan.de, I get this result:

SAT 07DEC02 JOHANNESBURG/ZURICH *LX
1 JNB ZRH 2250#0810 LX 289 F9 J9 C9 D9 Y9 M9 L9 H9 K9 BC#M11 C

Class A is not visible! Am I doing something wrong?

Viel danke,
David

[This message has been edited by IndyDavid (edited 07-29-2002).]

Indydavid,
Booking class A (and Z and other "non-standard") classes need to be entered in the "Buchungsklasse" box. Don't forget to unclick the "Klartextanzeige" checkbox, if you want to see (most of) the other possible classes too.
Rgds
(You could also use the "book with miles" option under www.qualiflyer.com (http://www.qualiflyer.com) to check award flight availability if you'd rather something in English. This is a lot slower for trying out different dates / classes etc. though.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Booking class A (and Z and other "non-standard") classes need to be entered in the "Buchungsklasse" box. Don't forget to unclick the "Klartextanzeige" checkbox, if you want to see (most of) the other possible classes too.</font>

That worked perfectly, Marvin! I had tried it that way, but only on days when there was no A-class availability, so I got the

NO SERVICE BETWEEN REQUESTED CITIES/AIRPORTS FOR PARAMETERS

error message. But now I see that when I put in dates where A-class is available, it shows up.

Thanks again. Flyertalk really is an amazing resource.

David

IndyDavid

GREEEAAAT TOOL, better than itn.net! What does an A instead of a number mean? And an R?

Edited to add R ...

[This message has been edited by ch_usa (edited 08-02-2002).]

quote ch_usa:"GREEEAAAT TOOL, better than itn.net! What does an A instead of a number mean? And an R?"

Yes, nice and fast, isn't it? I posted once before a few months ago, but no one seemed to notice.

C=closed / not available (not even waiting list)
A=available (with some requests sometimes there are no numbers posted against the classes)
L and R indicate different sorts of waiting list -I'm not sure of the difference between the two
Rgds

Where can I find a fare list/calculator

Based on let's say Outbound B inbound K class, what will a ticket cost ?

Can you in this case add the B-fare and the K-fare and divide them by two ?

~~~UPDATE~~~

Following Marvin's great advice, I've been checking every day or two for A-class availability... and tonight it showed up! Our preferred flights on 7 and 8 December showed A7 availability! So I called US Airways, the agent rebooked us, and when I searched Galileo-CRS again, it showed A5!

Thank you, thank you, thank you Marvin!

David

IndyDavid
I'm happy it worked for you! Have a great flight / time.
Rgds