Originally Posted by
seanburke
Hi all. I'm contemplating purchasing some flight passes from Air Canada, but i'm concerned about ticket availability. The terms of the passes state that they are H booking class tickets. I'm not quite sure if that's good or bad. When I look up flights for today, I see this, but I'm unsure what it means.
Could someone help me understand what I may be getting myself into!
You've asked several questions. First I will explain what this means:
Code:
[KVS Availability Tool 3.3.1/Lite - Apollo: ITN/US-ARL]
YYT St John's NL CA [CYYT]
EWR New York Newark Liberty Int'l NJ US [KEWR]
WED 15 Oct 2008
Carrier Flight From Depart To Arrive A/C St Availability
--------- ------ ---- --------- ---- --------- ---- ----
-> AC/QK 8640 YYZ 18:30 EWR 20:00 CRA 0 J4 C4 Z4 Y9 M9 U9 B9 H8 V7 Q7 L5 A0 S0 R9 K8 N7 G7 P5 E0 T0
It means the following.
"At this instant:
J4 - AC is willing to sell 4 seats for the Executive Class cabin, and it is willing to selling them at the J fare level.
C4 - AC is willing to sell 4 seats in Executive Class at the C fare level.
Z4 - AC is willing to sell 4 seats in Executive Class at the Z fare level.
Y9 - AC is willing to sell 9 or more seats for the Economy Class cabin, and it is willing to sell them at the Y fare level.
M9 - will sell 9 or more at the M fare level
U9 - and so on
B9 - and so on
H8 - AC is willing to sell 8 seats at the H fare level
V7 - or 7 seats at the V level
Q7 L5 A0 S0 - and so on until it will not sell any at A or S fare level.
R9 K8 N7 G7 P5 E0 T0 - and so on
and all this could change at any instant."
Note that they will not tell you the number over 9 in a cabin or a fare level.
Now, are H fares good or bad? The AC fare structure in North America looks like this:
J C Z - Executive
Y M U - Latitude
B H V Q L A S - Tango Plus
R K N G P E T - Tango
Within each of the four categories the fare rules are identical. The fares get cheaper as you move to the right, and the number of seats available for sale will not increase as you move to the right
within each row.
In my experience the numbers of seats available tend to be equal for the last two rows (B=R, H=K, V=N) etc.
H is the second highest Tango Plus fare level, so essentially the second highest of the nonrefundable fares. It is a fairly high fare level and availability should be good. You might have trouble getting on a popular flight on short notice but that's about it.