New earning Booking classes on Czech Airlines
 

Business-long haul
150% C,J
125% D

Business-Europe
200% C,D,J

Economy
100% B,M,Y
75% H,K,T (K,T up from 50%)
50% Q,X,L,G (L,G up from 25%)
25% A,U (down from 50%)

No more F,N,S,O,W,V

My last flights with them were mostly in N,W and a few times in X or U. Not good news..

That's just typical KLM giving as little miles as possible. Better to use Delta if you want miles (generally), though in this case:

Class Exclusions: A, E, G, L, N, O, P, Q, R, S, U, V, W, X, Z

100+% for other classes except V so good for H, K, T in economy (no difference for B,M,Y)

Also, Delta states as of 25Mar12:

F – excluded
A, L, Q, V, Z – excluded
K – moved to Economy, no change to %

How is this typically KLM when Delta does not give anything at all for discounted economy? KLM at least does for some of them :)

For the HKT fares Delta might offer 100%, but FB offers 75%..so the difference is minimal there. And personally I value FB miles quite a lot higher than Delta miles.

Nevertheless, in all cases it seems that earning with CSA is basically dead for the lowest fares. I assume it is CSA itself that decides how many miles are offered (In whatever currency used between Skyteam members). The various FFPs decide if that is of enough value to offer miles and at which percentage :)

You missed the word generally.

Just bumping this to avoid creating a new thread, as it is about booking classes. CSA Czech Airlines offer excellent fares from DUS to PRG (€100 round trip). However, these book into lower (promo) fare classes such as S or W, which offer no miles, and consequently no status segments. I don't mind paying a few grotzkis extra, just to get those segments on this occasion. But how do you do it?

The CSA website offers a somewhat more expensive fare called Standard, which I presume would yield miles (because it offers OK Plus miles). But there is no way of knowing the fare class on the CSA site, I think. Expedia will show you the fare class for the cheapest fare, but there is no way to book the next fare class up. I imagine that calling expedia or CSA Czech Airlines is the only way to fix the issue.

Does anyone happen to know if the more expensive standard fares that one can choose on the CSA site offer the lowest mileage earning classes (presumably U or A), or are a couple of classes up from those? I just figure there might be a couple of booking classes between the Promo and Standard fares that are not shown!

Does anyone on this forum seriously use CSA Czech Airlines any more? I used them in the mid-2000s when they flew to Edinburgh and Glasgow.

I would just call OK and ask.

OK have decreased their network a lot so since they deserted London I stopped using a very frequent user of them (I used to fly them a lot) although now that they fly from NCE I am more likely to use them again.

Correct on both. Call CSA and ask - you can even purchase on the phone, as OK - AFAIK - has no extra surcharges for phone booking.

I sometimes fly these Standard fares and always get segments. Though sometimes I have to pester FB Customer Care...

Thanks for the help here, once again. A quick bit of feedback: booking via the call center will incur quite a hefty surcharge. I managed to establish that the 'standard' fare on the web books into U-class, which is therefore eligible for segments (and a paltry amount of miles). However, I was prepared to do it just these once, as I really would like as many segments as possible early on next/this year (2014).

For DUS-PRG round trip, I bought for my companion a 'promo' fare at EUR99. For myself, I opted for the 'standard' fare at EUR220. Yes, I know it is a lot in comparison, but that is the sort of madness we get up to here (actually, I think it is perfectly reasonable for an airline ticket on this route). But I won't do this often and probably won't use OK all that much in the future.

I really wondered if there might be some fare classes between the 'promo' and 'standard' fares, but apparently none that earn miles!

Do I get the usual Gold benefits such as lounge access at DUS?

Finding the Fare
 

Concerto, I assume there is no easy way to find the OK tariff on its website. Before (like 2011, early 2012) you could always see the fare once you did the booking from your OKP account.
Now I mostly book via the company travel agency where I see the fare in the T&C of a chosen flight.

As the work-around, you can book the ticket on-line but at the payment stage you can just cancel the payment (back to e-shop function) but your reservation would still be valid. You get a code and you can either call or email CSA to find out your tariff:
Phone #1: +420 239 007 007
E-mail: [email protected]
How you pay that later or whether you have to pay a service fee - I can't tell now.

You are right to assume that U tariff is likely to be the cheapest to give the segment.
Hefty surcharge you may face is, likely, due to revenue maximizing techniques (offer just Plus and Flex fares by default) employed by the call center. Otherwise, you may ask for a specific fare and just pay a 30-40E service fee on top.

I'm Gold (ST Elite+) with CSA OKP since 2008 (Plat in 2011) - can tell more of recent experiences. Program lost lots of its perks since 2010 and acquired little from flirting with Korean, Etihad and AF-KLM.
Cheap 320s used on most of ex USSR destinations give so little comfort in business...

CSA OKPLUS Program changes since 2014
 

Hello:

I agree that booking on CSA site may be quite confusing. There is no straightforward way to tell WHAT EXACTLY booking class you are booking into. An agent on the telephone told me he can what LETTER will I find the booking in (which is exactly what I was interested in!) if I tell him what price the system quotes for me. HA! It is so much easier to book with a different airline even if it is operated by CSA.


I have been wondering whether there will be any updates to the program since January 2014. I see it possible that the company now realizes that too many people have been scared away. I imagine as February comes (the validity of 2013 cards), the airline's loyalty systems will see the numbers drop.

I just realized I made over 45 segments in 2013, only 3 of them were marketed and operated by OK, 3 of which earned ZERO miles to me. There are some positive news, though. Since I am also registered in the corporate program, I have received an e-mail saying they will recognize the benefits for companies again. Also, I found the same in the NEWS section after logging into your profile:

- They are RETURNING to the double crediting miles, for personal traveling (OK PLUS) AND a corporate program (in OK Plus Corporate)

- Discounting the overweight charges

- Crediting more miles (80 % vs. 50% for the G - group tickets)

Not that these changes make much difference, but at least they are not continuing the (expected) negative trend.

I fully agree that collecting miles/segments to OKP, esp flying/buying OK tickets, became a hassle. However, OKP still has one of the lowest segments threshold to elite+. I mostly fly corporate on T or H so they give 100% but for private... U is the best but not all flts seem to ahave U.
Probably,once one reaches 30seg or 50k - crediting to another less strict program such as aeroflot bonus or alitalia'.

Correct, Ivanko, the status is much easier to achieve (at Delta I need to collect 60 legs for gold, not 30 as with CSA). But with Delta, once I am gold, I also receive 100 % more miles for every flight. So I guess for me, as a long-distance traveler that is quite interesting.

I was actually considering Flying Blue when I was switching from OKPLUS, but I never could find the qualifying rules and what booking classes apply etc. In a way it was similar to CSA problem with clarity of information we discuss here. Delta is straightforward and absolutely clear in this.

And... You are lucky that your employer is willing to pay the high price tickets for you. I just would not be willing to pay 10 times more for a ticket myself only to get the miles. I do pay a little more to fly with KLM or AF around Europe and don't mind the transfer; also because I can rely on them more. (Unfortunately, I had to many cancellations and schedule changes with CSA, that I do not feel I completely trust them. They always reimburse the ticket if they have canceled a flight, but then it may be too late to redo my plans. :( )

2018 - Still no fare class info on OK website