Originally Posted by
no1cub17
So right after I posted my question, I played around on the site a bit more and found the online chat option. Asked them there - they said exactly what you did - you have to call to find out the fare class. HOWEVER, they did say that if you call to book a ticket by phone, the fare will be different than what's online! Can't figure out for the life of me why that would be, but hey when you're getting airfares as cheap as they're advertising, can't really ask questions can you?
Interesting that fare class doesn't matter to some of you. Here it's the question of earning 0% or 25% vs 100% of flown miles - especially for us mileage accruers/redeemers, makes a world of difference.
Within each airline, the discount level maps to a specific fare class, but is not uniform across Chinese airlines. I can't seem to locate my handy cheat sheet, but in general, full fare economy maps to Y (all airlines), 5% discount maps to B (most airlines), and 10% and 15% the letter code varies but maps to the next two highest fare classes. Usually these do get some sort of mileage accrual in their own and alliance partner FFP's. 20% discount level is on the bubble and also may depend on the specific partner FFP. Any discount higher than that and you can pretty much kiss goodbye any accrual. Premium economy may or may not get you any more mileage than Y fare class. Business and first should be pretty safe for accrual though heavily discounted premium fares might accrue lower.