Flight pass availability
 

The Western Short Haul Standard flight pass terms and conditions state that availability needs to exist in the S booking class. Specific dates/routes I am looking at are not coming up as available in the flight pass booking engine. However, expertflyer shows availability in the S class.

How do I handle this?

I've noticed this for months now in every type of pass except Latitude and Business
You can try calling and asking for the resource desk for Flight Passes as they are the leads and most aware
I've also had luck with the twitter team
I've also HUCA many times with call centre agents

Yes, but the availability is based strictly on Standard S. There is also Flex S, Comfort S, etc.
You'll have to check if the availability for TG basis suffix for S class exists.

Can you elaborate on that? S...TG is a specific set of restrictions on S class space. The FP has its own set of restrictions (advance purchase, round-trip, Saturday night stay, etc.), so I don't really see how a published fare would be relevant.

You're right. To be clear, I was focusing on the OP's checking of S class on EF (because I'm not assuming that the FP engine has this necessarily correct, so checking Standard S basis will at least tell you that). Everything else you mention is "fair game" as well regarding any potential information the OP might need to consider.

S class is S class...... regardless of any branding added to published fares

I am going by the T&C's on ac.com for the FP in question:

I suspect those are really old terms from when Standard/Tango wasn't every letter, and those terms might have actually provided information.

And they updated them, but didn't consider whether keeping them was worthwhile.

Sure. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Maybe they need to fix the wording to explain STLAK and that it is Standard S only?
Or perhaps any S including Comfort S?

As per [MENTION=29819]ABG[/MENTION] now seeing that S is similar in price across all brands that have S class, I'm not against that... (I'm assuming that is what s/he was alluding to, so I could be wrong)

But it would be interesting to find that you didn't get a BVRG because Flex S not Comfort S.

So what it be? hmm? :)

Or... just realized... are you guys saying that FP fare classes aren't ("shouldn't?) be tied to brand?

S class is S class, regardless of fare family.

I just pulled data for a random flight. AC 174 on May 23. Load is currently J9 C9 D9 Z7 P6 R3 Y9 B9 M9 U9 H9 Q9 V9 W9 G9 S4 T0 L0 A0 K0

AC is willing to sell 4 seats out of the S bucket. They don't care if they sell it as Standard, Flex or Comfort. Flex and Comfort will provide the pax with additional benefits for the higher price associated with the fare basis, but whether the fare basis ends in TG, FL or CO has no bearing on the fact that they're willing to only sell 4 seats out of the S inventory.

If there is an S seat, the FP engine should allow it to be booked. There is no such thing as S-Standard inventory vs S-Flex inventory. The inventory is the same ever since they went to branded fares. The FP is tied to brand because of the rules for mileage accrual, change fees, etc. associated with the "brand" of the flight pass.

Looks to me like the terms are current and are worth keeping. The fare buckets for Flex and Standard are now the same. The way I interpret this is that unlike the Flex fare category which books into the highest fare bucket (M), Standard pass books into a lower inventory bucket. In other words, if you see a Flex fare for sale on the main website, there should be available inventory to book with a flight pass. For Standard, just because there is a flight for sale on the main website, doesn't mean there is the correct bucket available for booking the flight pass (you'd need to be able to check something like EF to see if S is available).

I'm not at all necessarily disagreeing with you. The wording on most (if not all, as I didn't check all of them) of the FPs that sell Standard passes all use the specific "Standard S" wording.

Ok, but what about the specific "Standard S" wording? That needs to be changed to "S" in general, no?

Makes sense. Then it still lists the ordered fare classes, letting you know how far down you are, but doesn't create multiple posts in a FT thread because of "Standard S" availability :p

Right, makes sense.