Originally Posted by
sexykitten7
I'm confused. Are you saying that B LAX2PKIN should be a PE fare due to the I? Because to my non-expert eyes, it looks like a coach fare that books into coach (B). I thought the only PE rev buckets were OAR? Also UA doesn't have Main Cabin. I'm assuming you meant Economy?
And to piggyback off of WC, IMO the fare basis and booking code match 99% of the time so I think that's a reasonable expectation for the public. Granted, I don't spend hundreds (yes I said hundreds and not thousands) on fancy Y-UP tickets like some of you! Proud to say I finished last year with 59 PQP :O
As noted above, the first letter of fare basis code has not been a reliable way of telling you the booking class or if you are booking a coach cabin fare or not for many years (although it is still mostly true on international fares which is perhaps what you are thinking of). DL and AA do the same thing with their fare basis codes. DL refers to it as "branded" fare products --
https://pro.delta.com/content/agency...structure.html
Basically, there aren't enough letters in the alphabet to give these additional cabin types their own unique fare booking classes to match up with the coach fare booking classes. So they effectively extended the range of available classes by using a coach and booking class tuple for fares which don't book into coach cabin.
The "Y-UP" thing is an old timey designation from when fare basis codes only had 6 or 7 letters. They would append a "/YUP" ticket designator to coach fare basis codes and call them "coach with instant upgrade" fares. It's not really relevant these days with the expanded 8 letter fare basis codes and the F/J fares are truly F/J, and not coach, even if the fare basis codes start with coach fare classes.