boywonderto

I do most of my flying with Air Canada though my membership is with another Star Alliance program. In the past year, I have been having all sort of problems with miles not being properly credited by AirCanada on domestic flights flown on Standard Economy Fare Class V, Q, W, all should be eligible for accrual even for domestic flight. (I have no issue from flights with any other Star Alliance airlines).

When I raised this with my home program and they responded that AirCanada told them those segments were on class T, which is not eligible, and told me to contact Air Canada to dispute it.

I notice reports of this issue on the Aegean and the Turkish forums. Do folks on other *A program have this issue? I saw that there are some discussions on various forums about Air Canada having changed their accrual system to some "branded fare" system. However, this was never actually communicated for *A partner accrual. I checked the Air Canada accrual chart of about 10 Star Alliance partner programs today (including Aegean and Turkish), all still showing domestic flights on fare classes V, Q, W being eligible for accrual. If Air Canada indeed changed their accrual, they ought to at least communicate to their partners and make that information public, no?

I tried contacting AirCanada through their reservation centre (calling), through their twitter, through their facebook, through their online Customer Relations form, through emails. All these channels responded by saying it is not their problem. They won't even give me a referral to the appropriate point of contact to escalate within Air Canada. (Ironically, it was the reps at Aeroplan, which I have no relationship with, that were at least trying to be helpful, but was unsuccessful in giving me any proper solution or suggestions.) This to me is a a blatant abrogating of responsibility on AC's part, despite the fact that I have a contractual relationship with AC through my purchase, and it made certain representation at the time of the purchase.

Any suggestions/advice as to where I can escalate within Air Canada corporate structure?

ChrisA330

A few questions first:

• what program are you trying to accrue your miles to?
• how are you booking these flights? on aircanada.com or somewhere else?
• are these codeshare flights, or flights with an AC flight #, operated by AC

The Lev

One problem within Star Alliance is you book a codeshare on one partner's web site with another airline and see the booking class, but that booking class is for the ticketing carrier and it does not always correspond to the same booking class with the operating carrier. So you may have booked a UA "V" fare but it mirrors into a "T" fare class with AC. Unfortunately AFAIK there is no way of knowing unless you call the carrier and specifically ask them based on your planned routing.

AC is very good at "screwing" their customers by booking codeshares into the lowest possible fare class of the operating carrier, so it would not come as a shock to me if the same were happening in reverse.

boywonderto

All the segments in questions were directly booked on Air Canada website or by calling Air Canada reservation centre (when I called, I actually made a point of confirming the fare class with the booking agent).

They are domestic flights within Canada (actually all on commuter routes between YYZ and YOW), all operated by Air Canada with an AC flight number. I received reservation confirmation directly from Air Canada showing the fare class to be Q or V or W.

YEG USER

It's a pretty big assumption that AC hasn't communicated this to *A airlines. It could very well be that this was communicated and that the partner airlines are not timely in posting the changes, or have no idea how to handle AC's branded fares for their own FFP (especially regarding codeshare flights they might sell on AC metal), when all other airlines seem to have the basis as fare class.

IMHO this isn't really an AC issue, and AC is likely right that this isn't their problem. You need to escalate with your own FFP, not Air Canada, as you have a ticket in a certain fare class and you didn't get miles in accordance with what is on your FFP's site.

I'm assuming you purchased an AC flight on AC.com or via some other AC channel. If so, I'm not sure what representation AC made at the time of purchase - the only FFP earning AC mentions at the time of purchase are miles you'll earn on Aeroplan, and even then it is only for Aeroplan miles earned on AC metal. What is awarded for Aeroplan miles does not necessarily align with what is awarded for other FFP's.

I'm not sure what the current status is for UA and standard fares, however for many years AC awarded AQM/AQS/AQD for domestic Tango fares, while UAMP awarded 0, so there are often inconsistencies between programs.

I'm always intrigued when people's FFP membership isn't with their primary carrier - while there can be certain advantages, problems arise such as the one you're experiencing.

ChrisA330

And what is the program you're crediting to?

YEG USER

I was typing my other reply when this was posted. AFAIK AC doesn't make any representation for mileage accrued on *A FFP's, only Aeroplan. This is an issue with your FFP; I don't think you'll get anywhere if you try to escalate with AC. If you tell us your FFP, that can possibly let people help you, but it likely doesn't really matter - you'll need to deal with your own FFP.

pentiumvi

Sounds similar to this:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/othe...t-tickets.html

I've never experienced this myself, but it seems like this may be due to AC's branded fares.
Since all the other *A FFP gets is a fare class, there's no way to differentiate between V,Q,W booked in standard, flex, comfort etc.

Translating standard domestic V,Q,W to T class may be AC's way of limiting miles earned. Especially, considering a handful of *A FFPs I looked at give 100% miles for V,Q, and 50% for W, Whereas AC is only giving 25%,

yyznomad

There have been suggestions here when branded fares were introduced that it *might* cause some issues as now the entire fare basis code needs to be considered, and not just the first letter of the basis. So not an entire shocker I guess.

sokolov

Yes, Air Canada has started messing with this after the first weekend of May. In Economy, they report the correct booking class, unless it is better than T. Then, only T is reported. That is my experience.

They did have "branded fares" before, so I dunno what happened. Air Canada customer service agrees that I should get more miles for certain flights, but in the end the other airline (program operator) and Air Canada can't seem to fix it.

Passengers are given the short shrift. We have similar reports from several other *A programs.

yyznomad

Can you clarify what you mean by "started messing with this" after the first weekend of May? Like, do you mean you are aware of something they did internally to cause the reported issues?

As per some of the posters above, mapping of classes from one carrier to another has always been an issue. A decade and further ago, there were known and acknowledged "challenges" with UA fares (016 stock) being mapped to lower AC Tango buckets... because this depended on the city-pairing and not necessarily applied equally 1:1 in general. AY had posted about this frequently during that time period.

(For others unaware, the branded fares started last year: Branded Fares; AC changes booking classes/fare classes for Tango & Flex )

skybluesea

delete

yyznomad

Well, the OP's thread title is posed in the form of a question, so perhaps that was part of what they were trying to find out. But the OP will have to clarify my view of their intent (or lack thereof).

skybluesea

delete

yyznomad

I know. But I'm being nice for once and giving the OP the benefit of the doubt.