A deep dive on mixed-cabin awards with Mark Nasr
 

I’ve had the opportunity to get a more detailed explanation of the search engine from Mark Nasr this week, particularly as it relates to mixed-cabin awards, and it’s definitely a rabbit hole of information. What follows is a description of our conversation, and I’ll do my best to make clear any difference between facts and my opinions.

Mods - I hope you'll leave this in its own thread, as there's a lot to unpack here.

Readers - when I use the term "mixed-cabin segment" below, I'm referring to any segment that's below the cabin of the award booked. That'll be relevant when we talk about things like upgrades below.

First off - from AC’s point of view, they’re still fine-tuning the search engine, from things like which criteria are used to sort the initial results of a search, to how mixed-cabin awards are displayed, to how many different options are displayed for a given itinerary. This doesn’t sound like substantive changes to pricing, it’s mainly about them trying to strike a balance between showing a good range of options, while also recognizing that people searching Toronto-Vancouver probably *don’t* want to be shown six different options to connect through Winnipeg and Regina.

We spent a lot of time on the example of YYZ-YVR-SYD, mainly because it’s a solid example of what happens when mating up domestic inventory with international on two high-demand routes, but also because it’s the example that’s been discussed here on FT a lot in the last few weeks. Point is, I use that example a lot here, but the general principles apply similarly to something like YVR-YUL-CDG or DTW-YYZ-TLV.

I mentioned the frustration a lot of us are feeling when YYZ-YVR and YVR-SYD are each bookable separately in direct business, but YYZ-YVR-SYD forces a mixed-cabin itinerary or simply omits most of the available options to put the domestic leg in J.

He did say they’re currently looking at how the search engine handles which domestic options to show on domestic-international connections - for example, what length of layovers are shown, and how the search-engine decides which options are worth showing and which ones aren’t, on the assumption that nobody really wants to be offered YYZ-YWG-YYC-YVR-SYD.

He also noted that if you see an 8AM YYZ-YVR available, that the website won’t let you combine with a 23:55 departure YVR-SYD, you can call in and have an agent piece these together, at an updated joint cost that’ll recalculate depending on what you’re combining.

Phone fees will apply for new phone bookings, so this method isn’t free. It sounds like they’re exploring adding similar functionality online but Nasr said it’s too soon to give that an ETA.

I asked about the possibility of adding an option to let users filter out search results for mixed-cabin awards where less than X% of the award is in the desired cabin. The answer I got wasn’t a hard no, but Nasr noted that a key reason they haven’t done this in the new system is that mixed-class options now have the option to up-sell to a Flexible, non-mixed version of the same award.

One more time: if you see a mixed-cabin award in Business Lowest or PE Lowest, switching to a Flexible award will move all AC-metal flights into the desired class.

So, how does that pricing work?

Now that award tickets now have an analogous relationship to fare buckets, award space on AC metal is no longer as simple as “i_space=yes” like it was in the old system, though partner space still is.

For example, if YYZ-YVR prices out at 100,000 points in J on its own, in Business Lowest, while YVR-SYD shows up at 78,000 in Business Lowest, that probably indicates that even on points, that YYZ-YVR flight is available in a relatively high ‘fare bucket’, the same way a cash ticket in a given fare class is still split into so many seats in Flex U, so many seats in Flex H, etc., while the YVR-SYD leg is probably available in a relatively low ‘bucket’.

So, that example is likely to show up in the search engine as a “mixed class” YYZ-YVR-SYD award in Business Lowest, with YYZ-YVR in Economy or PE, and YVR-SYD in Business, because the search engine is tuned to show Business Lowest results that represent the lowest possible award option that has at least some of the itinerary in Business Lowest.

...but switching to Business Flexible will move the whole award into Business, and also move the whole award into the refundable/changeable terms and conditions, and include access to the Signature Suite on international awards out of YVR / YYZ.

Coming back to my question about the option to filter out mixed-cabin search results, Nasr noted: "just for example, you might filter out a TPAC [award] that’s 15% J for 70,000 when the 100% J might be 82,000. Why would you want to do that?”

Point is, in the new system, they’re really hoping that you’ll check out the “business flexible” option before giving up on a mixed-cabin fare.

I tried a bunch of sample searches, and the one pictured below is reasonably representative, though obviously there are going to be outliers. The price difference between Business Lowest and Business Flexible looks like it’s a bit more than the difference between an all-Business-Lowest award departing at 18:00, and the mixed-cabin-Business-Lowest version of the 20:00 departure I’ve highlighted.

Pricing below is for a 75K with a premium credit card.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f1cb66cf54.png


Seems complicated? Yeah, a little.

From AC’s perspective, this is driven by availability. From our perspective, if we're honest, there was never a realistic world in which every business-class seat was going to be available at the lowest-possible award level. On the plus side, you’re no longer stuck with weeks where mixed-cabin are the only awards available, and you’re no longer stuck paying through the nose just because a short connecting leg is high-demand in business class.

The idea here, Nasr notes, is that if you’re flying YOW-YUL-CDG, and the rush-hour YOW-YUL leg is only available in business in a high fare bucket, or only flown by a DH4, many people will happily take the 24-minute flight in economy rather than pay tens of thousands of extra points to push the whole award into Business, or reroute through Toronto, so the mixed-cabin option is offered instead of just assuming you want to pay the higher cost. Given how often I used to hit a wall booking mRTW awards, where 13 out of 14 global segments were available except for YOW-YUL, this is a reasonable point.

Unfortunately, this does also mean we're likely to keep seeing search results like YYZ-EWR-CPT where the 90-minute leg is in Air Canada business, and the 14-hour leg is in United Economy. A bit annoying, but not the end of the world.

Nasr also notes that on mixed-cabin awards where the lower segment is on AC metal, the cost of that segment will be pro-rated accordingly. On the upside, the old program charged full business price regardless of how much of the trip was actually in business; on the downside, the new rules no longer automatically put mixed-cabin passengers on the gate-upgrade list. More on that below.


Upgrading mixed-cabin awards

- If your whole one-way bound is booked entirely on partner metal, the old rules still apply to upgrading mixed-cabin awards: if I-space opens up, an Aeroplan phone agent can move you up to business. As before, there may be additional taxes and fees; for example, a flight out of LHR or CDG is taxed based on cabin class, so upgrading those segments will likely cost you extra taxes, but on fixed-price, all-partner awards, no additional points will be charged. If the one-way bound includes any AC metal, and therefore has pro-rated pricing, then upgrading a partner segment *may* re-price the whole bound.

- Any mixed-cabin segment on AC metal is eligible for eUpgrade just like an Economy or PE flight booked as an award on its own. I asked if there are specific rules about which exact fare type mixed-cabin awards will book into, and it sounds like they won’t set long-term policy on that until they have more data on "booking volumes and behaviours”, so for now mixed-class segments are assigned fare classes (and presumably priced) based on availability in each case.

- If you book a mixed-class award, you will no longer be waitlisted for upgrade at the gate on the mixed segment. Unless you eUpgrade, the class on your boarding pass is the class you’ll sit in.


Notes on connection timing

- All domestic-to-domestic and domestic-to-transborder connections are normally limited to 4 hours or less, but there’s currently a COVID exemption bumping this up to 10 hours to account for lower flight frequency.

- All international and domestic-to-international connections are limited to 24 hours or less.

- For example: on YOW-YYZ-YVR-HKG-SIN, the YYZ stop is 4 hours (currently 10) or less, while the YVR and HKG stops are each 24 hours or less.

- On the example above, you can pay an extra 5,000 points (and book by phone) to add a stop-over at HKG of as long as you’d like, but the stop-over option is not available within North America. When I asked whether the North American stop-over option might return in the future, Nasr made a point of saying he “can’t make a commitment on North American stopovers right now”. Which I’m reading as “the answer isn’t yes, but it isn’t no yet either."


Final thoughts
I’m not sure how I feel about this yet.

Honestly, if I ran this same YYZ-YVR-SYD search in the image above, and saw a “Business Lowest” award for that 20:00 departure priced at 94,100 points as the first result, I'd probably think that was a reasonable price, considering the same route used to be fixed at 80,000 plus a ton of fees - and the YVR-SYD leg was often impossible to find in Business.

…but when I see the exact same thing offered to me at 94,100 points as an up-sell to Business Flexible, my first reaction is to feel a bit bait-and-switched.

I can recognize that’s not a terribly rational reaction, but that doesn’t make it any less true. I can recognize that that works exactly like cash prices have for years, which is exactly what AC has told us to expect for months now - but that doesn’t make me any happier about it.

If I step back and look at it rationally, it’s not at all outrageous. The only reason I’d actually refuse that 20:00 departure is that I’d be more likely to take the same deal at the same price for the 19:00 departure, since a Business Flexible fare would entitle me to dinner at the Signature Suite at YVR on my connection.

Really, it comes down to the fact that this new program is an absolute gold mine for someone with a huge supply of points that gets topped up on a regular basis, where an extra 15,000 miles for a confirmed upgrade and a nice dinner isn’t a big deal. For others, those extra 15,000 miles are worth hundreds of dollars, and the best thing about a 2021 layover at YVR is going to be stopping in for a ten-dollar Japadog.

To each their own.

Wow, YOWgary, thanks for this extremely deep dive. Very useful!

+1

Read the whole post, phew! Well documented YOWgary and thanks for posting. Can't wait to see what multi city search option will look like next year.

I had no idea that flexible would give you all AC segments in J.

That is not very well advertised.

...but switching to Business Flexible will move the whole award into Business, and also move the whole award into the refundable/changeable terms and conditions, This will certainly be a tipping point for booking redemptions through YYZ/YVR. Nice to see they're including this.

Thank you for your detailed reporting and taking the time to lay this all out. Much appreciated.

Is this documented anywhere officially? The AC Signature Suite page still just lists all the fare classes, and excludes R and I. So wouldn't a Business Lowest which books into P or Z also give you access? I just tried both reward options on the web site and couldn't find any reference to the signature suite either way.

The direct quote he gave me was: "Business and First Flexible fares will, indeed, have Signature Suite access if the traveller is leaving on AC in Business Class from YYZ or YVR. In the rewards world, it has nothing to do with the booking code—it’s all in the branded fare selection. The reason why we haven’t highlighted it on the booking engine is that the lounges are currently closed [due to COVID - G]"

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A friend of mine thinks I shouldn't call myself a 'real' hockey fan, because I don't have opinions on which players at the World Juniors are most likely to go on to great careers in the NHL, and any true fan would know their stats in detail.

We're nerds, here, and obsessive ones at that. I suspect most of us have non-FT friends who fly frequently, who don't know a fraction of the detail that counts as "basic knowledge" around this place; what the eUp requirements are from Flex U vs. Flex M vs. Comfort vs. Latitude, or what rules apply to accommodating a 50K during IRROPS that don't apply to a 35K.

...that's not because airlines hide this information, but because most people honestly aren't interested in learning a thousand details. This forum is a few hundred people at most, and *maybe* a hundred regulars, out of AC's whole customer base. That's who's interested enough to show up.

Heck, there was a very active thread in this forum for well over a year, in which many members expressed their frustration at the small problems that come from knowing Air Canada's rules and procedures in greater detail than many of its employees.

I don't envy any airline - or any company that makes or provides a product with lots of details - trying to balance out publishing enough detail to make the product usable, without overwhelming people with too much information. As many of us encounter on a regular basis, it's hard enough for a company of that size to produce the right level of product knowledge among people who are literally being paid to know it.

I'm not looking to hand-wave away any problems - you and I both believe there are absolutely communications opportunities being missed - but that's also coming from a group of people who choose to spend some of their leisure time looking for those gaps. Some are real, meaningful missed opportunities, while others are edge cases that only matter to a fraction of the fraction of the user base that those details actually affect.

I said "hey, me and the other nerds found some things the marketing materials don't cover", and the guy who designed the program spent an hour on the phone going through every question in detail.

If that's "hiding", they're bad at it.

Another way of looking at the same facts, is that you and I are both surprised that I found a detail Cow didn't already know.

Either that's "pathetic", or it's telling that that's how far I had to dig to find one.

Slightly related:

On mixed class bookings made before Nov 8, can we still waitlist at the airport, presuming there's space, and presuming it's AC metal?

Thanks.

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True. Although intentionally posting wromg information is in violation of the FT rules. Based on the OP's track record, I have no reason to believe the information is not true.

I don't think of it as "selective disclosure" or "hiding information".

1. Airlines frequently release more information to journalists/bloggers/etc. vs. what is published on the airline's website.
2. Many airlines do a truly mediocre job at publishing even the most basic rules.
3. AC has chosen to engage with a variety of bloggers as part of its AE relaunch strategy. In fact, the time AC management has invested into communicating with various bloggers to address is remarkable IMHO.
3. It's important to keep in mind that we're discussing aspects of the program that are of interest to 0.001% of members, and - to be frank - even most AC empoyees lack the competency to understand.

Why so cynical? There are certainly many AC-related things worth criticizing, but characterizing AC's communication strategy with regards to the AE relaunch as a "collective misinformation campaign", I don't know....

/thread

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