bluegreen2

In the past I have booked multicity longhaul flights to Asia like this:

1. UK - City A In Economy with BA
2. City A - City B In Business with CX
3. City B - UK In Business with BA

And the fare breakdown was structured like this: UK to City A (Economy), City A back to UK via City B (Business). There were some good deals as I was getting a low business fare code and a low economy fare code.
However all the times I have had a look over the last 6 months the economy part of the flight (part 1) has defaulted to the Y fare code which often exceeds the price of the low business fare code.

Is this a recent change in Policy from BA, does BA now force the economy fare code to Y if another sector is purchased in a higher class?

pythonisman

Not a mixed class fare, but I recently booked FCO-LHR-SIN, SIN-LHR, LGW-TRN in business.
The longhauls are in I and the shorthauls were in the J fare bucket, which surprised me when I booked it (but the price was still good).
Expertflyer is showing FCO-LHR as J9 C9 D4 R9 I9 and LGW-TRN as J9 C8 D4 R9 I8 so there's plenty of availability in I, wasn't sure why it went the way it did.

rossmacd

jamespi

This can happen on all Y bookings as well, I have had short connections in the US selling into Y despite the rest of the ticket being in Q or N buckets. The price is definitely not full Y, likely something to do with corporate fares.

Globaliser

Indeed: without knowing what the itinerary is, the question is rather (dare I say it) opaque.

My guess is that City A and City B are both in the same area, namely the Far East. That means that the CX flight is a short-haul flight. The likelihood is that this would be fared UK-A on a BA economy fare, and A-B-UK fared on a BA business fare with A-B booked on a CX flight because BA doesn't fly that sector. If so, the question would be something like whether this combination of a BA economy long-haul fare and a BA business long-haul fare now requires the economy half to be booked using a Y class fare because lower economy classes won't combine with the business fare on the inbound half.

It seems rather less likely that A-B is a long-haul operated by CX, because that would involve combining a CX long-haul business fare outbound with a BA long-haul business fare inbound - and that is probably not going to happen except at some eye-watering price (if permitted at all). And even if it is possible, it wouldn't explain how the short-haul feeder UK-A flight on BA would end up in economy.

But that's about all the guessing I can manage. Knowing the cities involved is critical. Saying no more than "City A" and "City B" just leaves the question unanswerable.

bluegreen2

I was deliberately vague as it worked with a whole host of city combinations in the far east, now it works with none:

My personal itinerary was:

1. London to Bangkok BA Economy
2. Bangkok to Hong Kong CX Business
3. Hong Kong to London BA Business

NickB

I suspect that the reason for this is that the fare rules for LHR-BKK (or more generally EUR-BKK) used to allow routing via HKG (or KUL). Many of these fares no longer allow this and require the long-haul segment to be direct. The consequence is that instead of having a LHR-BKK reutrn (with the outbound in economy and the return in Business), it now contains three separate fare components with the intra-Asia segment being a separate fare component. The rest would be the effect of fare combination rules, which probably prevent the segment booking in a cheap booking class.

WorldClub

bluegreen2

I used to get these fares for about £1700, now they cost £3800 or more if I want to do this. The fare breakdown doesn't show three separate components just two, with economy forced into Y which often costs twice as much as the business class fare for the flights.

The reason I didn't specify the routing was because it is not just this itinerary that worked, I had done ones via Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and Hong Kong in different orders before.

Globaliser

As NickB says, this looks very likely to be because of the policy change. It used to be this kind of itinerary could be fared using cheap business class fares for BKK-LON, routed through HKG, but BA will no longer allow this.

You could still do this by buying LHR-BKK in economy, and HKG-LHR in business class, and bridging the gap in some other way (eg an award ticket BKK-HKG). A quick search on random dates in September threw up a fare of about £1,300. The same thing should still work on many other routes to the region.

NickB

That pricing sounds consistent with it having been an I class fare on the return between BKK and LHR with an indirect routing via HKG. I class fares no longer allow such indirect routing. You can get an A class fare (first class) though that would allow a BKK-HKG-LHR routing on the return, which would be combinable with a premium economy T-class fare on the outward and should work out in total at somewhere in the region of £2800. You would be in first class on the BKK-HKG and HKG-LHR segments, assuming that the CX flight you take between BKK and HKG has a first class cabin.

Alternatively, get an open jaw return as suggested by Globaliser and buy a separate BKK-HKG ticket.

bluegreen2

Ok, thanks for your help everyone. It seems a policy change is the reason then, at least I got to take advantage when I could!
I had been saving up to do an A class trip at some point on the 787-9, but I am now more keen to spend that money on the club suite now. Just waiting for the a350 to be deployed somewhere 11+ hours away!
My next trip will likely be to Sydney on BA15 in economy though, which I am excited about.