Originally Posted by
Starman
To clarify, this is not an issue of whether the discount _CA fare bucket happens to be open and available for a given flight. Rather, the GSA website which lists all the successfully negotiated fares for the current fiscal year only shows a YCA fare negotiated for that city pair, with no _CA fare in existence. I had not seen this before.
I have definitely seen it on international routes fairly frequently in past years . . . to my disappointment (from a personal and upgrade standpoint) this year a lot more flights have a _CA, which has been booking into S, just below GPU eligibility and with high miles+$ copay. What's particularly frustrating is that on many of these fares, the difference between YCA and _CA is relatively small ($250) given the rather significant benefits. In fact, if one want to upgrade (and had the guarantee), paying the difference personally would be better than paying the higher copay and miles.