irishguy28

Yes, but why on earth would a 100% earning fare map to a 0% earning fare?

It's bad enough if a 25% or 50% earning fare maps to zero, but a 100% earning fare? Really?

And why is it so opaque?

I guess they want us to avoid codeshares entirely....particularly on airlines, such as SQ in A3, that only have 100% or 0% earning [that should be a warning - there are clearly going to be lots of potential "maps" that end up in the zero bucket, and you have to realise by now, that when they map, they always seem to map downwards....]. Though you really should be forgiven for thinking that going out of your way to choose an apparently 100% earning fare should earn SOMETHING after it is mapped...

(Why Star Alliance doesn't just earn on the basis of the fare code of the codeshare, I just don't understand. Why bother telling purchasers this information, and hide the fare code of the "underlying" earning ticket, if they are not actually trying to wilfully mislead people???)

irishguy28

I have never heard that, and never had any trouble obtaining miles for flights - even individual sectors in a larger ticket - that earned 0% in the originally-claimed FFP.

The trouble here, though, is that without knowing which fare code it booked into on SQ - there are suggestions above that it is O, but does the OP know for sure? - that it may not earn anything anywhere...

http://www.wheretocredit.com/singapore-airlines/o

KLouis

N; but he doesn't care at all about SQ miles. He moved back to Europe (not Greece, though) for good, if one can pretend to know how life goes. The latter can be proven by the fact that he earned zero miles.

irishguy28

N earns 50% in SQ, VA and SK, according to http://www.wheretocredit.com/singapore-airlines/n

But, as you say, completely useless to someone who had bought this ticket specifically to lock-up A3 *G.

(Hope the trip down under was enjoyable, though!!!)

djjaguar64

Lesson learned here is to call A3 when booking codeshares and ask them to do some leg work to see how their codeshared booking classes map to the respective airlines etc. Sometimes codeshares can be cheap but other times risky & more expensive if you don't know the mapping.

irishguy28

Not worth the effort. With nothing in writing, there is no binding promise there. And this assumes a fixed one-to-one mapping. It may be a lot more fluid than that...depending on where, when and how you buy the ticket, and which fare basis (rather than just fare code), there may be far more inputs to be looked at.

I wouldn't expect anything like an accurate answer, unless you are ringing A3 direct and actually buying the ticket from them, over the phone. And even then, I would not be surprised if they are unable to accurately tell you how it will post when it hits your M+B account. And if it hits your account as zero, when you were told it would earn something, what comeback do you have, anyway? None. And the agent may just tell you what you want to hear, either to get rid of you, or to close the sale.

TIP: avoid codeshares in your requalification strategy - at least in economy class on airlines that have economy classes that don't earn in A3!!! [so, a codeshare on SAS should be safe in that regard]

That said, it may be dangerous to assume that a business class codeshare will always map to an earning class - particularly on the likes of Lufthansa et al with the infamous "P" non-earning business classes!!!

TIP: if the airline that actually operates the flight you are booking with an A3 codeshare has any non-earning revenue classes (in either business or economy classes), assume that any ticket you are interested in buying under an A3 code will map to the non-earning fare class.

KLouis

He postdoc'd there for a couple of years, and although he did enjoy it a lot, when it was time, he applied for a job in Europe (and got it). Yes, you remember well, we did visit him last November and liked it a lot (I had previously cancelled a total of ~5 trips down under).

Air Rarotonga

A3 W mapping in SQ O... Where can i book this ticket???

O-cl is the award booking class for the frist class cabin / or SQ Suites

djjaguar64

djjaguar64

Unfortunately we will never know for sure as W codeshared may have no mapping rules to an A3 booking class, which means maps to nothing!

KLouis

I have posted three (or was it only two) times that the A3 W fare class on the SQ code-share mapped to SQ N.

PointWeasel

AC is a champion at this deception and the website shows codeshare Flex fares (100% earning) with *A partners that map to 25% or 0% earning. Borderline fraud, IMHO. Total misrepresentation. I had one of their clueless call centre agents advise that that we only book codeshares, if there is no AC codeshare on the partner flight we cannot book it. Yep.

Now to my latest A3 codeshare issue. IST-SKG operated by TK, codeshare with A3. Nothing worked properly, online check-in was unavailable. The connecting A3 SKG-MUC flight was even more screwed up. TK had assigned a random middle seat and A3 lounge staff pre-assigned an exit row window. When the TK BP printed out in IST, it was still the crap seat.

So its a complete mystery to me what I will earn on the TK-operated flight as W earns 100% with A3 and W earns 0% with TK. I should know what it mapped to within a few days.

As far as others scolding the OP for not having looking into the mapped fare with the operating carrier...have you tried to find out with the airlines or the OTA? Its like pulling teeth and most have no clue what we are asking. In fact, my booking with expedia.co.uk still hasn't resulted in a proper e-ticket being sent and the itineray I received from their Indian contact centre looks like a Word doc from the 1990s.

KLouis

Well, it wasn't my problem (the OP ) but my son's. He completely disregarded my piece of advice re code-shares and it turns out, unfortunately, that I was right. At any rate, I'm very close (13 months away) to reaching the age when I'll start using a real TA since doing everything myself gets expensive: last week when I booked my present trip, instead of a return flight tomorrow, I booked it for one month later. Fortunately I realized it immediately, called A3 and I had to pay 20 € for the phone service them waiving the penalty (it was a non-changeable flight). To wrap it up, I may no longer be in love, but I still think that they're a good airline. Presently it's "only" the code-shares that bother me as well as the so-called OA domestic flights; being *G on M+B, thus no personal harm, it's the lack of transparent logic that gets on my nerves.

supemola

To be fair with A3, they do indicate during the time of reservation how many miles will be earned as well as the A3 booking class.

A strategy that works for me is to figure out which booking class earns the desired amount of miles (by sampling a few different dates) and then book the specific class over the phone.

irishguy28

Which, in your example, means earning only for the FRA-ATH sector.

http://www.wheretocredit.com/calculator#FRA-ATH-A3-W