pewpew

I booked a ticket via a TA for my requalification flights. He mentioned it was issued as an IT fare. Is there any reason to worry about this section of M&B's T&C?
When we priced it out, it was based on publicly filed fare bases, and the price was based off those as well. Looking it up on A3's website, it books into the same earning classes as the public fare (e.g. L/M/H). Is there any reason to think I might not earn miles/segments?

NWIFlyer

An IT fare, as far as I’m aware, consists of a discounted ticket offered to the travel trade coupled with a hotel.

That discount pretty much drives the fare to the lowest possible level, and is designed to drive a small amount of incremental revenue for the airline on seats that would otherwise remain unsold plus an add-on profit for the TA. Because these fares are sold to the TA in advance, the base fare never changes irrespective of where public pricing is, so buying late they can be very cheap depending on what mark-up the TA applies.

So, here’s where my confusion is - what the TA has described to you doesn’t fit with what the reality of what an IT fare is. It simply can’t be based around a publicly quoted fare - it would then be a package. Are there any other clues in MMB or by plugging your PNR into Check My Trip or similar? Perhaps the office which issued the ticket (as in the TA’s or A3’s)?

Certainly airlines do keep a close eye on IT fares to make sure the air part isn’t offered as a stand-alone. The only industry experience I know of is with BA, who do credit on all revenue fares, irrespective of type.

DELLAS

Depending on the airline a lot do still earn miles on FF programs. All IT fare contracts state if they are able to earn or not so the TA would need to read their contract T&Cs to 100% tell the customer if they are able to earn or not. I do wonder though is this really an IT fare. Usually on the E Ticket IT fares show no fare and just taxes so that may offer more insight.

pewpew

It looks like this PNR only has the flights. I double-checked in checkmytrip and on the Amadeus-generated receipt. As for the pricing bit, when I look the ticket up in Saudia, each leg has a publicly available AC (it's a TATL) fare basis attached to it. Same with the Amadeus receipt
Mine is indeed (likely) an IT fare, since in the fare calculation on the receipt, it lists the cost of the base fare as "IT" but it does list the cost of individual taxes/fees. My main concern was that A3 had a blanket rule against awarding miles/segments on an IT fare, but it sounds like this isn't the case. I double-checked with the TA, who's an FTer, and he confirmed that it should earn miles, so here's hoping it all works out

Xandrios

Irrelevant of what 'should' happen, I would try to have a backup strategy for your (re) qualification.

Aegean is known to not always follow the rules, or, use their own interpretation (E.g. the stopover debacle for awards, and not giving out original routing credit). I can imagine that any fare not based on a monetary value (0.00 euro or up) would be considered a special fare that earns nothing. And even though the rules may say that fare class XYZ would earn; there's little that you can do it it doesn't credit and their response is "This is a special fare that falls in the category of non-earning rates"...

Knobbgb

I remember a similar discussion to this about a year ago. All I could find was this:

Kiwi.com fake flights?

This was a "proper" charter flight with a 4-digit flight number and not listed at all by A3 themselves. I assume this is what they are referring to when they say miles cannot be earned on "IT flights". I think there was another thread where somebody booked a seasonal flight from one of the islands to a non-regular destination in N Europe and it was in a different booking class (maybe N?) which is explicitly stated as not earning. I can't find that thread though. Maybe somebody else remembers.

EDIT: Ah this is what I was thinking of. The issue here was a 'J' class fare that couldn't be upgraded but the same principles may apple. One poster (reply 3) states that J class (despite being listed as earning) do NOT earn as they are IT fares.I don't know if there is a similar issue with the class(s) you are booked into.

Be careful if booking with Expedia (and wanting to upgrade using vouchers)

Also scroll down to reply 19 - A reply from Aegean saying that a fare didn't earn miles becase there was no fare charged - just taxes and that normal tickets in that same booking class would earn. This ties in with what Xandrios said above.

Sorry, nothing definitive, but more info for you to ponder...

hydrogen

[MENTION=563998]pewpew[/MENTION]

OP, is the IT fare on 014 stock on AC metal by chance?

pewpew

Yeah, I have one on 014 stock, 70% AC metal (with some A3) and one on LX stock, 50% AC, 50% A3. They're regularly priced T + N fares, so I shouldn't be too worried, but I don't want to have to do another MR later this year

hydrogen

So I must attest that my experience with these fares are with crediting to AC, so take my post with a grain of salt.

Used to use IT TPAC P fares. Up until about 1.5 years ago, everything was all good. They credited at 150% for P to AC.
About 1.5 years ago, had an IT P fare which didn't credit. Retrocredited and it showed up as a K fare to AC. Strange.
Contacted AC and they said that they "could not award full credit on consolidator tickets". Needless to say I was not impressed, especially since I wouldn't have bothered with this fare if I had known it would credit at 50%. Ever since, I have stopped with these IT fares.

Don't mean to scare you, but will be interested to see what comes out of your situation. If any issues arise, it will be AC refusing to forward credit to A3. I don't see A3 being the one causing issues here.

Chiller3333

Also check reply #24 .
Seems like it did credit at 100% after all.