Kiwi Flyer

Hi

All 4 of my intra-south america flights on LA have now converted to all economy. 2 changed before I ticketed and the other 2 after ticketing. I'm on a business class fare (DONE4 if it matters). There are no alternative flights I can take (same or other routing).

Is there anything I can do? It doesn't seem right that an airline can just downgrade the service to economy without recognising in some way that I paid for business class (on the 2 flights that changed after ticketing).

Eastbay1K

More and more of this is happening This is really disappointing because LAN has been advertising a new Business Express service (ala Euro-style front cabin) and it just isn't showing up in many places.

And you know, I just went to look for the page.


http://plane.lan.com/info_viajes/cla...ess-es-cl.html
but when you click on the mini-site below:

http://plane.lan.com/files/promocion...ess-es-cl.html

This is really sucky and depressing news.

Kiwi Flyer

Thanks for the link. My flights are on routes mentioned as getting business class express.

Matt340

Well, yeah, the Eurostile cabin is boring and i just hate it, but you can still find many 767 operated intra-southam routes. Just flew SCL-MVD on sunday on the 767, with the Premium Business and the new economy seats.
Plus, most aircraft have the Business Express Cabin, it just ain't showing up in some routes. Honestly, I don't know why, but every A318, and most A319 and A320 have business express cabins. Also, a limited number of A320s still have full business cabins (those planes do Ecuador-Argentina runs mostly, and some Santiago based international routes) but those are being phased out/converted to the new cabins with leather seats. No domestic flights have them, though. It'll be interesting to see if LAN decides to make them available in Domestic Argentina flights (since the competition offers them, with somewhat good results)
Maybe if you elaborated on what flights you are taking I could help you more.

Eastbay1K

The domestic flights don't have the "service" but they are using the planes. My domestic flights last Dec/Jan had 1 cabin planes with the faux wall/curtain tied back at row 3 or so. You'd think they could sell premium seats on routes like SCL/PUQ (where they once upon a time flew 767s).

Matt340

Yup, in fact, the whole idea of the business express cabin is to change the cabin distribution according to demand. IIRC, business express starts with a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 16 euro-business seats.
I hope they learn something good from AA and upgrade Elites sometime ¬¬

Kiwi Flyer

Sounds like I need to follow up why I have been booted out of business class then. A variable size business class should be no reason to be downgraded, especially several months before departure.

Eastbay1K

They aren't offering ANY front cabin for sale - they are Y only (for sale) planes. That is why. They aren't using them. Period. Why? I do not know. I had a change to the same situation EZE/SCL but actually changed my ticket to another day with a stopover in SCL, so it became a non-issue (at least so far - but it is on the flight # that continues to JFK so hopefully it will remain safe).

ex-ams

Looking at the LP765 from LIM to GRU on 5th September, the aircraft only seems to have an economy cabin - that's certainly all that LAN will sell, and the seatmap definitely agrees that there's just one big economy cabin.

What's weird is that they operate a codeshare with TAM on this route, flight JJ8705, and TAM seem to want to sell a business seat to me, expertflyer shows J4 availability.

Does anyone have any idea what the situation is here?

Kiwi Flyer

There's a thread in the other american airlines forum about LAN all economy flights, which I too am impacted by.

See here.

Swanhunter

This thread may be best answered in the Other North and South American FFP forum, so I am going to move it over there.

Swanhunter
Moderator in Training, OneWorld Forum

cblaisd

Thanks, Kiwi.

Let's continue the discussion on that thread.

cblaisd
Senior Moderator

ex-ams

Seems I missed this thread when I posted another one.

My specific situation is that the LP765 has become all economy. TAM, however, are still peddling J seats on the codeshare JJ8705.

Five hours overnight in Y? Argh!

leandrorar

Try to book always 763. There are some A320 that still have biz, however most of them have been converted.

ranles

My wife and are are planning to use AS miles to go from SAN to Santiago (SCL?) in late January and return in mid Feb from Rio de Janeiro to SAN. Using LAN cost less miles than taking AA. We are planning business class flights. Depending on our routing, we expect a leg out of SAN may be C, but would expect business the rest of the way. Are we wasting our miles booking "in business"? I'm 235, 6' and prefer larger seating...wife is nearly 1/2 that size, but she still is use to 1st, from our working days, and really seems somewhat alergic to C.

Never flown LAN. Early this year we went on Iberian for the first time and were delighted.