Originally Posted by
giorginho
It's all very subjective of course, I'm sure for some the 0-day pass would make perfect sense.
Thanks. Yes I think that you are right in 99% of practical cases. However with the price difference between 7 and 0 day passes being about 88 euro's for the whole Pass.... you only need a single case of having to book within that 7 day window to, potentially, pay full fare and lose a whole lot more money than 88 euro. It is in a way a bit of peace of mind just 'in case' you ever do get to be in the situation to need a flight in less than 7 days.
Originally Posted by
giorginho
However, as I said, if your experience shows, that AMS flights get completely booked the more the departure date is approaching, then you might end up not getting to benefit from the "0-days" at all, since the pass only guarantees "last seat availability" and I even think it was mentioned, that you can't "pull the gold card" and ask that you are granted a seat on a full flight, when booking with the pass (you could get yourself on that plane, but only by paying the full fare, while not using the pass).
It makes sense that the Gold benefit of "kicking a non-elite off to open up a seat" doesn't apply here. Though, technically I don't think thats mentioned anywhere in the terms. For the AMS flights the load obviously depends on the time of year and such. During the summer time many flights were sold out though I guess there must have been some availability still every now and then.
Just to ease my own curiosity I checked the 10 next days on A3-626. All of these flights were either sold out (2 flights), very few Y seats left (3 flights), or only selling full Y fare (5 flights). The first date that offers lower than V-class availability (V-class is just above the price per segment on the 0-day pass) is... November 22nd, almost a month from today. Though I must admit that the other way, A3-625, has a different balance where in the next 10 days a few days would actually be cheaper to purchase a ticket rather than use the Pass.
Originally Posted by
giorginho
I don't think I've tried this, but if you're "only" wait-listed, what stops you from taking that voucher and using it elsewhere? There's no confirmed upgrade, so their "non-changable" rule shouldn't apply. I believe the text they read you out loud right before applying the upgrade voucher reads something like "After the upgrade gets confirmed, no further changes may be made to the booking".
Interesting. I always was under the impression that when they start missing with upgrades or waitlists that will be visible on your booking and that means that in practice you won't be able to make changes no more. Having said that I don't believe that I've ever had to waitlist an upgrade so I'm not sure.
Originally Posted by
giorginho
I'd certainly bet this is what that is, unfortunately. It's been mentioned a couple of times, that such benefits from different sources don't stack up, it's just the higher discount that counts, not both (I'm talking about discounts that apply automatically, not via discount codes or vouchers, those should actually work together).
In a way you could say that between the 12 and 8-flights pass the price difference per segment is 8 euro's, but if you include the free Upfront seating with the 12-flights Pass too that'd be 18 euro. Gettign upfront for free is then an actual benefit for Gold, while the 50% discount is basically wasted.
Originally Posted by
giorginho
If the 30-day pass expires on August 1st, you'll only be able to initially book as late as July 2nd the very last available flight for August 1st. However the thing is, since you've then basically purchased a fully flex fare, you can rebook to whenever you want, as far in the future as the currently available flight schedule goes, so not just August 31st, but probably even July 25th of the next year! This indirectly prolongues the validity of the passes, which is the only reason I'm now considering buying them for the entire family, however they could close this loop hole at any moment and leave us with basically worthless tickets. So I'll certainly hold off purchasing a pass, until it becomes the last resort for cheap tickets for us (we're always flying during some holiday, so tickets since 2022 have gone considerably up in price).
Got it, thanks. That's indeed a bit of a hack it sounds like. I'm assuming that pass flights always book into Y-class and therefore you can change them to any flight that offers Y availability. It is interesting though that, after the pass has expired, it would still require you to honor the Pass'es original number of days between booking and flying. In any case it'd be a tricky thing to rely on indeed. Better wait with purchasing a pass until the moment you actually are ready to book the first segment.