Originally Posted by
FrankTalk
unless you're saying it specifies the prime RBD for any fare.
That's what I mean. It requires the prime code of the fare covering the sector in question to be I. [That doesn't mean that the fare needs to start with the letter I-, just that the prime code is I.]
In your example making an Economy class search with
DUB:: BA /F BC=I
LHR:: BA
JFK:: BA BA /F BC=I
will put LHR-JFK in Business (I) as well. Why? Because ITA is looking for these options:
1) DUB-LHR in I, LHR-JFK in anything - there are no DUB-LHR I fares that allow a combination with LHR-JFK and the DUB-JFK fares require a diff booking code for that leg, and
2) a DUB-JFK fare that allows booking I on
any single leg of the journey - obviously the DUB-JFK I fare satisfies this.
[...]
But it doesn't have to be an I fare, it can be any fare that both includes DUB-LHR and allows a single leg to be booked into I.
Then let us change the example a little. If I specify /f bc=J on DUB-LHR and nothing on LHR-DUB, and don't pick the EI-operated flight, now
both legs are booked into full fare J. But according to point (2) of your logic, a much cheaper I- fare would suffice because it permits booking into J class on DUB-LHR as required.
According to my understanding, I have specified the prime code for DUB-LHR must be J, and in this case the cheapest option is to get a J through-fare on DUB-NYC, so both sectors go into J.
(and this is where my dual booking class/fare specifying question is relevant, you can't pick First as class of service because some legs don't have it, but need to specify both the booking class for the longhaul and the fare used which is not the lowest. Also with 2+ stopovers and 7 legs on a single fare that uses higher booking codes than the fare code gets pretty complicated pretty fast and even ITA will lose track of what's what and starts breaking the journey.)
On the dual inventory fares, the higher inventory class is usually the prime code despite the fact that the code starts with the lower class. That may vary by carrier or how they implemented it of course. So taking what you said:
It can probably be better illustrated with United A fares that usually book into C or D ex-US, you specify A on an all economy flight, it will book the economy i Y, the longhaul into A and use a C/D fare.
Do you have an example of such a fare? My suspicion is that although it is a C-/D- fare, it would actually have a prime code of "A" if we checked the booking codes table.
You are absolutely right, it works! I don't know what I did wrong when I tried it the first time but it most definitely works. Thank you!
Well I'm happy it worked even though we disagree about why