Whew... these fare rules, technicalities, etc. are so complex. Its interesting to try to solve this all like an algorithmic problem, but I think i'm reaching point of mental overload
Not too bad, though. I've been reading the FAQs and Wikis and other websites, and I think finally understood fare booking codes a bit. Let me make some assertions based on what I learnt, and perhaps some of you could verify that its correct. Here goes...
Assertion 1: So economy class ONE tickets have 'L' as "booking class", and booking class is a different concept from "class of service" = economy here. That means, say for particularly flight, economy class passengers could be of any of various booking classes - code K,M, etc. etc.. corresponding to fares paid. Full fare is generally 'Y' and these are refundable non-restrcted tickets. The other extreme would be say O,Q tickets, with lots of codes in between.
Assertion 2: So now if I have to look at rules (say for AAdvantage) then I look for the rules corresponding to L. For example, for doing the Platinum challenge, the number of points = no of miles, for L-class, as against 0.5 miles of Q class, etc. Effectively I just look for "L-class" and get whatever info I need.
Assertion 3: Lots of other things like this. Fare basis code = LONE5 for me which basically defines booking class, plus a corresponding set of rules. Codes can be very complex too like KLRCAS or H7NR (H-class 7 day booking, non-refundable), etc. Is there a nice resource for decoding?
Its all correct so far, right?
Now my question is regard to availablity. Say I'm trying to fly on a particular flight using the LONE, and go to the ticketing agent to make a reservation (on change one while on the road, by calling the RTW desk, etc.), and the agent looks up availability, then do they only look for L-class tickets? Or do they look for all economy class seats - or include seats which are 'lower' than L-class?
Other related question - would it be possible that some flights NEVER have L-class inventory?
Net result, does that mean that I might not get reservations on flights even if economy seats are available?
For example, I wanted to travel LHR-GIG. there is only one direct flight, while others stop at JFK/MIA. I checked
www.seatcounter.com and the BA direct LHR-GIG flight for 27th Jan 08 has no availability in L-class. I kept checking for seats "+7 days" till the limit of the service, and there were no L-class seats available at all. Could this be only due to overbooking, or possibly the flight never has L-class available?
Now all this, I expect, would have an impact on planning segments for an *ONE* ticket, wouldn't it? For example, if this is flight is unusable, I'll have to plan accordingly and go via JFK/MIA which uses one extra segment, so I'll have to account for that in planning (fortunately the rules allow for a transit stopoever so JFK/MIA stopover works - see, I've been reading
)
I guess that means LHR-GIG direct seems to be out for me - unless i'm grossly misunderstanding. Could anyone clarify if possible? I apologise if this is too basic a query, but the more I'm reading the more confused I seem to be getting
Thanks a lot!
Udai
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side note, perhaps LHR-JFK-GIG is not too bad an option, coz if I do it on AA, then I can successfully finish the AAdvanatage Gold Challenge, which would mean some benefits for the next 5-10 flights (I also expect to be able to do the Platinum challenge using some of the later flights).
Might be worthwhile even in conmparison to losing one of the 20 segment quota?
current itinerary (simplified from earlier post,to barebones plan, will add more): LHR-?-GIG//SCL-IPC-SCL//LIM-MIA-JFK-LAX-AKL-?-SYD-NRT//DME-LHR
P.S. "L-class" would mean the same thing for all oneworld carriers, right?