Originally Posted by
jc94
Right thanks. Please could someone point me at the appropriate place to read up on R vs Z? I've tried to find information but it's hard to search for "R" and "Z" and most of what I've found is unhelpful AC pages talking about it without explaining what the differences are!
AC has 6 business class 'booking classes', in descending order:
J C D Z P R I
JCDZP are regular ticket classes with J (usually) being the most expensive, down to P as the most discounted.
R is used for seat upgrade availability
I is used for award seats (i.e. Aeroplan)
To upgrade a Flex or PE Lowest ticket to Business, at the time of the request, there must be availability in R class, or you will be waitlisted.
To upgrade a Latitude or PE Flexible ticket to Business, at the time of the request there must be either be availability in R class, or availability in P class (for international flights), or Z class (for North American and Caribbean flights). This provides for additional availability to those on Latitude/PE Flexible tickets.
Using YYZ SFO for 1 August as an example:
Code:
01AUG MON YYZ/EDT SFO/PDT-3
1AC 735 J9 C9 D9 Z9 P9 R4 Y9*YYZSFO 0630 0904 320 B 0 DCA /E
B9 M9 U9 H9 Q9 V9 W9
2AC 737 J9 C9 D9 Z9 P9 R5 Y9*YYZSFO 0800 1025 763 B 0 DCA /E
B9 M9 U9 H9 Q9 V9 W0
3AC 757 J4 C4 D0 Z0 P0 R3 Y9*YYZSFO 1235 1509 320 M 0 DCA /E
B9 M9 U9 H9 Q4 V0 W0
4AC 753 J7 C7 D6 Z6 P0 R2 Y9*YYZSFO 1645 1919 320 M 0 DCA /E
B9 M9 U9 H9 Q4 V0 W0
5AC 739 J9 C9 D9 Z9 P9 R6 Y9*YYZSFO 1845 2110 763 M 0 DCA /E
B9 M9 U9 H9 Q9 V3 W0
6AC 759 J9 C9 D9 Z9 P9 R4 Y9*YYZSFO 2055 2329 320 M 0 DCA /E
B9 M9 U9 H9 Q9 V9 W1
On a Flex fare, you would only be interested in what is showing in R class. On a Latitude fare, you would first look to see what is showing in R class. If nothing is available, then you would also look at Z class. In this example, all flights could be upgraded because there is availability in R class.
If we choose a different day:
Code:
11JUL MON YYZ/EDT SFO/PDT-3
1AC 735 J2 C2 D0 Z0 P0 R0 Y0*YYZSFO 0630 0904 320 B 0 DCA /E
B0 M0 U0 H0 Q0 V0 W0
2AC 737 J4 C4 D0 Z0 P0 R0 Y0*YYZSFO 0800 1025 763 B 0 DCA /E
B0 M0 U0 H0 Q0 V0 W0
3AC 757 J4 C4 D0 Z0 P0 R0 Y0*YYZSFO 1235 1509 320 M 0 DCA /E
B0 M0 U0 H0 Q0 V0 W0
4AC 753 J2 C2 D0 Z0 P0 R0 Y5*YYZSFO 1645 1919 320 M 0 DCA /E
B5 M4 U0 H0 Q0 V0 W0
5AC 739 J5 C5 D4 Z4 P2 R0 Y9*YYZSFO 1845 2119 321 M 0 DCA /E
B9 M9 U0 H0 Q0 V0 W0
6AC 759 J5 C5 D5 Z0 P0 R0 Y4*YYZSFO 2055 2329 320 M 0 DCA /E
B4 M4 U0 H0 Q0 V0 W0
On a Flex fare, no upgrades could be confirmed because there is no R class availability. However on a Latitude fare, you could have an upgrade confirmed on AC 739 as there are seats in Z class.