Originally Posted by
zoqfotpik
That's about right. Alternatively, you can search for the fare basis by typing /f (carrier).(origin+departure).(farebasis). If you go this route, you need to know one of the values in order to work. It's more complicated but I find it easier to use than searching fare class.
When I search for combination fares (ie. half round-trips in Y/J or Y/F), I usually enter the code to search for J or F, and leave the economy fare blank. As long as you set the Cabin to look for the "Cheapest Available", it should return the cheapest fares. Although sometimes I also code the economy segment to search for a specific carrier for example.
I use fare basis codes to find Flex fares for Emirates, as for multi-city bookings the EK website throws out the cheapest and won't let you choose the fare class/type, there are four or so flex fare buckets, so in ITA Matrix I plug it in as "f bc=k bc=m bc=b bc=u", very useful, and as you say you can leave it blank to get the cheapest. When pricing multi cities in a triangle routing via DXB it's often best to force one of the destinations to be a side trip and that can be on a lower fare sometimes as it won't accrue that many miles anyway, e.g. CPT-DXB-HYD/BOM-DXB-MUC/PRG-DXB-CPT, this is an actual ticket I booked for later this year, and EK website was giving me Specials and Savers which earn half or a quarter the Flex miles but often are just $20 cheaper, however DXB-HYD-DXB is a super short sector so I don't care so much for that one, I saved quite a bit by letting those flights be Saver, booked as a side trip of a CPT-Europe return, but it requires each sector to be entered separately into ITA