What do fare classes map into on UA?
 

I am considering a business class ticket on BMI that is a code share which actually goes on United. I am sure we all know possible reasons why one might do this, so I won't go into more detail!

My question is how to find out what fare class it will map into on UA. The BMI fare class is JNC1S.

Also, this fare only seems to show up using online ticketing companies (like Expedia, etc.), not on the BMI site itself. Is this common, or will I not be allowed to book when I finally get to the last step?

If it's for real, will I be able to go on the UA website and select seats, etc?

Thanks for your help. This is a new area for me!

I'm not quite sure what it is you're trying to do, but all of United's business fares earn 200% mileage (J, C, D, Z), so I can only presume a BD 'J' fare would map onto one of those. You should be able to go onto United's site to select seats, although you may have to go to checkmytrip.com to retrieve a United-specific PNR.

Well, if it books into C, D, or J on UA, I can upgrade to first with SWUs. Otherwise, if it books into Z, I have to use 40k miles plus $1000 RT if I want to upgrade.

Aha. Well, I couldn't tell you for sure. There was a thread lurking around which had gathered a few fare mappings from BD to other airlines, but there's no guarantee they'd apply to your particular fare.

In all likelihood Z. While this is not an absolute foolproof method, try to enter the itinerary on ITA (with check availability unchecked) and see the fares brought up by the search engine for BD and UA and compare the fare basis under each carrier code for similar fares.

I strongly suspect that there will be a ZNC1S UA fare which is almost identical to BD's JNC1S.

If you have EF or KVS, an alternative method would be to compare fares for both carriers on your chosen route and look for matching fare and nearly matching fare basis name.

It is not absolutely foolproof in that there is no guarantee that the mapped bucket onto the op carrier necessarily matches that of the comparable op carrier's fares. But there is a very high probability that it will do.

Looking at what KVS is showing I'd hazard a guess that this will map to Z

Great suggestion. I have EF, so I did the fare comparison. Interestingly the BD fare showed up buried among the higher economy fares, but booked into business. However, all higher BD J fares with UA equivalents seem to match an immediately following Z so that almost certainly means the one I found does too.

This is what I suspected but your suggestions lend significant additional credence to that belief. Thanks!

There was a thread on this last year - and the upshot was Z, if I recall correctly.

Just booked SFO>LHR yesterday. It is booked in UA Z. Since this is a BD J fare, can I use the BD arrivals at LHR or even the UA arrivals at LHR?