Originally Posted by
wenu
2. Booking Class:
It says "subject to availability of ‘N’ booking class". I am not sure what exactly the 'N' class is. When I am searching tickets to HK on AC website, the lowest economy class is usally 'V' or 'H'. And I looked at my past tickets, none of them is in 'N' class (they r K,H,V,etc.). So I worry about the availability of 'N' class. Is it very limited? I am guessing it won't be available at all in high season, such as Christmas.
I use SeatCounter.com to look up the 'N' class availability. YYZ-YVR-HKG do have some 'N' class seats (around 9). But is it really accurate? I don't want to see a different version when actually booking online.
"N" availability is not directly related to the fares that appear on the website for individual ticket purchase. There is no published "N" fare for sale between Canada and Hong Kong at all, so it would never appear as such on AC.com when you price an individual trip.
It is now common for AC to sell passes that book into a fare category that isn't otherwise available. It seems that the actual availability of that fare class is "married", so to speak, to one of the published fares. A little experimentation for flights over the next few days seems to suggest that "N" corresponds to "H", which is a moderately high booking class, but not the highest.
There is "N" availability on
tomorrow's flights to HKG from YYZ and YVR, for example, although YYZ-HKG is
N2. Honestly, if you book even a little in advance (especially around school holidays and Chinese holidays) it would seem that availability shouldn't be a problem.
Also, you are misinterpreting the Seatcounter information.
N9 means there are at least 9 seats available to be allocated to "N" fares. It could be 9; it could be 200. They don't tell you anything over 9.
3. Flight with stops:
I am doing school in Kingston (YGK). So everytime I travel to HK, must complete YGK - YYZ - YVR - HKG. I usually stop at Toronto (YYZ) or Vancouver (YVR) for a few days for visitng then fly to Hong Kong (HKG). Is it possible for me to have such a stop when using the flight pass? It says "One flight credit is required per direction including connections", so I think it should be fine?
A few points:
- a
connection on an international itinerary is any time between flights that is < 24h. (On domestic/US flights it is <4h, or the next available flight if there is none in 4h). Anything beyond that is called a
stopover. The T&C do not mention stopovers, so I would assume they aren't allowed unless you can determine otherwise. So you would have to get to YYZ and YVR yourself.
- passes are intended to be all online, and pass users report not seeing every possible connecting series of flights available. So it might not be possible to engineer stops in YYZ and YVR anyway, let alone near-24h stops that you could use to visit the cities.
- note that you will maximize your mileage earning (both redeemable miles and delicious status miles) by taking the YYZ-HKG flight for your international leg.
- Queen's sucks!
Regards,
Zorn (B.A. McGill '91)