Originally Posted by
MahiMahi524
Thank you for the quick reply and clarification! Looks like "fare class" on the website should really be "booking class." The "fare basis" being different from the "class" was confusing me (and the AS agents). Has it been your experience that AS agents don't know how to calculate earnings on partner tickets?
If you talked to a reservations agent, I wouldn't expect to get sound advise. I would expect a better outcome if you were talking to a Customer Service agent in Mileage Plan, albeit newer employees may lack adequate training.
I used "booking class" to indicate the fare bucket you are actually booked into. A fare class, Main, Premium Economy, Business, or First has multiple booking classes. For instance, AA Premium Economy fare class has W, full-fare & P, discount. Both W & P are booking classes within the PE fare class.
If your booking class is P, you earn 100% EQM in Mileage Plan, if the booking class is W you earn 100% EQM plus a 10% Class of Service bonus - COS. The COS is both EQM & RDM.
The fare basis defines the rules for the itinerary such as voluntary changes, min/max stay, book by date, discounts, combinability with other fare basis, routings, days of the week, circle trips, open-jaws (like yours) and others.
On a return fare, the outbound & inbound flights may have differing fare basis and the most restrictive usually applies to the whole.
The fare basis may also be different than the fare class it books into. For example an economy S fare class may book into a Premium economy or Bsusiness fare class. These are called y-up or sell-up fares.
In February, I flew SEA-DFW-SCL return. It was an AA ticket on AA ticket stock. The fare basis was economy S, the fare class was Premium Economy. This was a y-up fare that booked into Premium Economy in booking class P. Further, there was an option to fly AA or AS SEA-DFW & DFW-SEA. The AA option was in Main cabin (no PE on the flight, but the booking class was H, which earns 100% EQM in MP). The AS option was a First fare class booking into C. Obviously, that was the option I chose. AA sold (plated) the AS marketed & operated flights so not only did they earn 175% EQM in MP, they also counted as 2 segments for requalification.
If you reference the partner chart of the marketing carrier and look for the letter you are booked into you shouldn't have any issues determining what you will earn without concern as to the fare basis and fare class.
James