Originally Posted by
Pusheen
Here is my flame-free question for this thread.
I got MVP for the first time this year. I don't travel for work, only for pleasure. I'd like to get MVP Gold, and generally travel more. I don't have specific destinations in mind, and a very flexible schedule - I would rather choose destinations by deals, as price is the main sensitivity. I've got an Alaska Mileage card and about 60k miles in my balance at the moment. Based in SEA. The question is this:
What is the learning path from a flight idiot who uses Google Flights to find deals, to a flight professional like you wonderful people, who intrinsically understands all this. I get that different tickets have different codes which correspond to....something, beyond just the class. I assume booking time? I do know there is a wiki but if I'm being honest, I'm so overwhelmed by all of it that I'm struggling to find some point of penetration through the veil of overwhelming ignorance on this topic. There seems to be something fundamental I'm missing from this understanding - I'm guessing it has to do with access to specific tools where this information is more relevant/obvious. For example, I see people talking about first-class MVP upgrades on flights costing $15, $35, $110 - whereas I only ever see it at $600+ each way. Is there any way to make this whole experience less kafkaesque? I feel like I'm constantly banging my head against the wall, because I've never once in my life seen anything approaching the flight deals I've heard about. Is it simply that I'm not dedicating enough time to all of this, and that the people who are able to find good deals are simply putting in 3+ hours a day searching through flights to find these hidden gems? Is it because I don't fly enough to need to understand how the greater system operates and how people game it?
Let's see if I can break out down for you.
" I get that different tickets have different codes which correspond to....something, beyond just the class."
The codes you see people talking about, like Q, O, X, U, etc, are the "fare class". For the most part they correspond to how much you paid for the ticket, although there are some special ones - U means "Upgrade" - a ticket purchased in Main but upgraded to First. X is Saver. E and T are saver awards in First and Main, respectively - those are important because those must be available to attach an AS flight to an award itinerary on a partner carrier. For normal fares, J, C, D, and I are the First fares in descending order of cost, and for economy it's Y, B, H, K,
M, L, V, S, N, Q, O, G in that order (they're ordered on https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mi...earn-on-alaska)
Okay, so why do those matter? Well, as you can see in that link, some of the more expensive fare classes earn more miles (although Y fares are incredibly expensive, so you probably aren't ever booking that) but more importantly the fare class combined with your elite status level determines what upgrades you can get.
As a MVP, you can upgrade to premium class at time of booking with a Y, B, or H fare. As a MVPG, that expands all the way to N fare. For 75K and 100K, all fares except saver are eligible: https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mi...class-upgrades
First class works similarly. As a MVP, you can upgrade to first at time of booking with a Y or B fare. For a MVPG, that's a Y B H or K fare. For 75K and 100K, that's Y B H K or M fares:
https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mi...ntary-upgrades
If you're searching on alaskaair.com for flights and select "MVP or MVP Gold" or something like that in the "Upgrade fare type" on the left, what it will do is add "Premium class upgrade" and "First class upgrade" columns that's the cheapest available but also in the above fare bucket. Y and B fares are very expensive, so if you're searching for MVP this will often be *much* higher than just buying a first class fare. Searching for upgrade fare types also adds a little box with an F in it to each flight. This corresponds to whether or not there is "U" (or upgrade) space available on that flight. Alaska does not just let anyone upgrade into any available first class seat, because they want to try to sell a paid first class ticket if they can. If the F is in a white box, that means there's currently no U space, so purchasing a "First class upgrade" fare won't actually get you into First unless U space later becomes available (the booking process will warn you of this). An F in a blue box means U space is available.
"For example, I see people talking about first-class MVP upgrades on flights costing $15, $35, $110 - whereas I only ever see it at $600+ each way."
For an upgrade that cheap, they might be talking about the increase to an N fare to use a "MVP Gold guest" certificate. I've never gotten such a good deal on upgrading to first on AS without using a GGU. When you reach MVPG, you are given four codes that you can use (or give to friends/family to use) to get a confirmed upgrade to First as long as there's U space available (blue F like mentioned above) and your fare class is N or higher. Since N is on the cheaper end of the spectrum, it's much more common to end up just booking this fare, or maybe booking a Q or O fare and then the upfare to be minimal. But it's not just the cost, you also have to use one of the GGUs to get the upgrade.