For me, the glass is always completely full.

It is confusing to me as to which fares I can directly access from the aircanada web site, which fares I can access by calling the Air Canada telephone reservations agent, and which fares do travel agents have access to, via their computers.

The air canada web site states that econo and latitude fares are "web exclusive". Tango, econo, freedom, fund, and executive are amenable to booking, both by the web, and through the reservations agent.

I wonder if all of the old booking codes - eg V, H etc, can still be booked through the telephone agent, or not.

In terms of a travel agent, assuming that he/she does not go to the air canada web site, but uses his/her own computer - it looks like they have access to all fares, including econo? and latitude fares. I can confidently state that, because a travel agent has booked a transborder fare for me, and the booking code is "A" - one of the latitude fares.

So how can we get this thread stickied so that it is always near the top. Other threads like "best seat on the plane" could be candidates as well.

Domestic is as per what I posted and for transborder, TANGO is available online only while the others are available from reservations.

Yes.

They book these fares just you how you would, using AC's website.

I will email Randy to see how it can be done. I know it's not something that every member can do.

Empress:

On a flight that was booked by the American travel agent recently, for transborder travel, he was talking about various booking codes, but had no idea when I asked him about the new terminology of Air Canada fares - from tango, through to freedom, for economy class fares. However, he did quote all the letters of the alphabet in terms of the various booking codes associated with these type of fares, including the letters that dealt with the latitude fares.

I am therefore wondering if travel agents, through their own reservation computers, have access to all the booking codes and fares, that we do, without going to aircanada.com, or whether their computers would not be able to access all such booking codes?

FlyerGoldII

Except for TANGO, the other FUN/FREEDOM/LATITUDE/EXECUTIVE Transborder fares are available from all travel agents (they are published fares so they don't have to book on AC's site).

To ask one last question - a travel agent, who books through his/her own computer a reservation on Air Canada - can

i) book all fares, including freedom and latitude (the latter 2 are considered aircanada.com web exclusive fares) equivalent fares, without going to the aircanada.com web site, for both domestic and transborder flights, and

ii) tango fares, whether domestic or transborder, can not be booked by a travel agent, unless he/she goes to the aircanada.com web site.

per my other post about negative experience on this in LHR today:

"standby not allowed on international flights"

All those in favour of making this thread "sticky" (so it stays at the top of the list) post here or otherwise make your opinion known.

Please make sticky.

Question - earlier in this week an AC reservations agent told me that M,U,A fares were not available from telephone reservations for YYZ-YVR (U,A are latitude available only from the website) and M is not offered on YYZ-YVR. This was the second tiime this has happened. The agent said the only upgradeable (via SWU) available from telephone reservations was full Y. Is this accurate?

I've just edited the posts with the most updated info.

privatejet, that's correct. Only Y/M/U/A are upgradeable with SWUs and M/U/A are Latitude fares which are only available online. There are two types of Y, the first type is the online Freedom Y and the second type is published Y (which is what's available from the reservation agent). The online Freedom Y is about 50% cheaper than getting from a reservation agent.

Perhaps one of you can post in the Suggestions forum to request this thread to be stickied. (which is how the Best seat thread got stickied)

One major misunderstanding about fare classes:

Only international M class can be upgraded at time of booking, a pure domestic/transborder flight booked in M can only be upgraded at 7/4/2 days prior to departure depending on your status (unless it is a connection to/from an international flight).

I have posted a request on the 'Suggestions' forum addressed to Dan (One of the FT tech guys) for this thread to be stickied as many of us agreed that it would be useful.

As usual thanks Empress.

I noticed a Rapidair advertisement for $59 flight to Ottawa.
In the text appears the following:
"Double Aeroplan Miles
Between April 22 and June 30, 2004, every time you fly on Rapidair flights operated by Air Canada or Air Canada JazzTM between Toronto and Ottawa or between Toronto and Montr�al in any booking class eligible for Aeroplan Mile accumulation, you will earn Double Aeroplan Miles. You must be an Aeroplan member at the time of travel in order to be eligible for this offer."

Does this ticket have aeroplan miles? Or is this deceptive? I suspect the latter because of the insertion of "eligible for Aeroplan Mile accumulation.." in the text.