Other Asian, Australian and South Pacific Frequent Flyer Programs - Air China PVG-PEK

I have flown Air China before within china and always found it wanting. Other airlines are better but in November I will fly PVG to PEK return mostly for the miles as it is a short haul and on a 747.

I have booked in what is called Y but I suspect they use Y as a code for other discounted fares. If I do not get Y or equivilent I will not get my mileage to Aeroplan Air Canada.

Any advice for me on how to handle this? I have had mileage problems before with Air China so that is where I am coming from.

Have you checked the Aeroplan site?

I'm not sure if this helps you any or if it applies to you.

http://www.aeroplan.com/earn_miles/our_partners/partner_details.do?Partner=AirChina

I have flown Air China before within china and always found it wanting. Other airlines are better but in November I will fly PVG to PEK return mostly for the miles as it is a short haul and on a 747.

I have booked in what is called Y but I suspect they use Y as a code for other discounted fares. If I do not get Y or equivilent I will not get my mileage to Aeroplan Air Canada.

Any advice for me on how to handle this? I have had mileage problems before with Air China so that is where I am coming from.

No. Y is full fare. By the way, if you're willing to pay that (probably a steep premium over other fares on the same flight), why not just go for C or F? Personally, I'd just go with the cheapest fare; you should still get a 500 mile minimum in your program (though I'm not all that familiar with Aeroplan).

Y is full fare - and Business will not be very much more. I have also had cases of booking in discount fare classes only to find them posting to my LH account as full Y.

Actually I can tell you thisfrom our flight in July.

Over the normal Y fare C class was around USD45 more and F USD90 more.

If on a 747 there is likely to be the mid-cabin F which is between doors 2 and 3 - 10 suites. Biz class is moved to the nose.

cheers

lme etc etc

If the mileage is not automatically credited to your account, you can request the missing mileage to AC. Your experience with CA must be very long ago. CA's system had been upgraded and they can recognise your status with AC by inputting your AC#

If the mileage is not automatically credited to your account, you can request the missing mileage to AC. Your experience with CA must be very long ago. CA's system had been upgraded and they can recognise your status with AC by inputting your AC#

Depends on the airport. CA (Air China) easily recognise status and credit flights without a problem when you're departing and airport where they have a major presence like PEK, PVG, HKG or CTU. Try departing from a smaller airport where the airport does all the ground handling though and sometimes the miles do not post, even though "AC*G" or whatever appears on the boarding pass. A recent KWE-SHA flight didn't post for example and I've had similar issues departing DLC, Chongqing, HFE and the like.

I never have problems if the name matches correctly. Some booking engines within China will reverse given and family names so that your boarding pass reads GIVEN (FIRST) NAME/FAMILY (LAST) NAME. You won't get points and will have to apply to get them manually credited. Your boarding pass must read FAMILY (LAST) NAME/GIVEN (FIRST) NAME.

I have a contact at Aeroplan who is familiar with this problem and just automatically credits my flights. Depending where you booked, the code will show up on an itinerary from travelsky.com

TRAVELSKY TICKET CHECK (http://airchina.travelsky.com/cab2c/customer/query.jsp)

Here is what a print out of your itinerary should look like from TravelSky:

http://members.shaw.ca/deercroft/airchinaticket4.jpg

Failing all this, phone Air China in Canada and ask them what booking class you are in. I have found that most discounted fares (not all) earn at least 50% mileage and some very cheap fares even earn 100%.

i flew air china a few times this summer and they're fine. The biggest "steals" is if you can score C fares. Air China flies planes with different configs, the domestic are F and Y while the intl configs on domestic routes are F/C/Y. C on intl configs is better than or at least equal to domestic F, and is usually about $40-$50 USD cheaper. The only thing you don't get is you have to use the business lounge rather than first lounge, but from my observations and talking to lounge agents, there's little to no differences there. As for service between C and F, the FAs told me that it's almost identical service, so C is usually worth it.

My theory is, if you're going to pay for full Y anyways, you may as well pay for C if its available.

If you're buying cheap fares, I think K is the lowest of the 100% mileage accrual buckets. Anything below K gets you only half. Of course, this is irrelevent if the distance is 500 miles or less since the 500 mile minimum kicks in. Also, if your flight is just a hair over 500 miles, it may or may not be worth it to upfare to K, since the net difference isn't very much.

If you want to try another airline while still earning miles, consider Shanghai Airlines, they're also part of Star Alliance. My only experience with them was their intl F lounge at PVG which was rather nice.

The biggest "steals" is if you can score C fares. Air China flies planes with different configs, the domestic are F and Y while the intl configs on domestic routes are F/C/Y.

Personally, I only buy C at the airport in walk-up situations, during which I'm pretty sure that my flight is going to operate close to on time.

Reason: Only ~6 flights per day offer C (some are two-class, btw) so it's really hard to change to other flights when holding C tickets. While it's possible to either downgrade to Y or buy up to F, there's nothing automatic about the process, which means there's a good chance that you'll miss that precious flight that is getting ready to leave while you're stuck at the ticket counter.

Air China flies planes with different configs, the domestic are F and Y while the intl configs on domestic routes are F/C/Y. C on intl configs is better than or at least equal to domestic F, and is usually about $40-$50 USD cheaper.

Yes. I ever took the F class from PEK to SZX. CA used new 747-400, which was usually used between PEk and SFO/LAX. The first class seat is lie-flat. This is of course a lot better than F seat in other type of aircraft. But you do not know which flight they use 747-400.

Book the week of your travel. The fare will max out to Y1180 or thereabouts. If you are in China you can use ctrip or elong, if not you can book after you arrive. Also, wondering why you are flying from PVG and not SHA which is more convenient to most areas of the city. If you can let go of the 747 requirement, Shanghai Airlines is a good alternative for *A.