This typical event showed why I didn't last too long working in the Singapore travel industry with my qualifications!

In any case, epigram, I have news for you....

Why the CX website (and SQ website, among others) can show availability over what travel agents see. It's call "CONTROLLED INVENTORY" and it's controlled by ABACUS - the travel reservation systems used by 99% of travel agents in Asia.

With CX, SQ, MH and others among the owners and founding members of ABACUS, they are allowed to do something that is totally illegal in the West. It's called Controlled Inventory. By that I mean that each airline can control the inventory in each class sold to in a respective country of their choice displayed on ABACUS. Which is to say , say on CX from BKK to HKG. The agent in Thailand need to book in M booking class for a specific flight. They are showing a day with zero availability and it goes on waitlist. But another agent dispalying the same flight may be able to book it if he/she were in Singapore or HongKong ... and definitely on systems NOT on ABACUS. Why? Because the yield in getting that flight is lower in Thailand than the same seat sold in HKG or SIN.

SQ has been doing this for YEARS. Agents in Malaysia occasionally showed ZERO availability for flights to Australia via Singapore but yet an Australian agent can sell the same seat in Australia without any problem. Even on flights which may be full, and upon waitlisting it, seem to clear much quicker (almost immediately) if the booking originated from high yield countries like UK, Australia or USA.

Even though SABRE is hosting the system, it does not have the say in what the majority owners do - in this case ABACUS.

Why people suddenly can book on the CX website over travel agents - it's because the CX CRS does not have the same capacity control as does ABACUS and thus will show true inventory and availability.

Agencies in Asia who use Gallileo and Amadeus have better seat availability but ABACUS has controlled the travel agency market in such a way that agents who use the above booking systems will have a very very tough time getting their tickets issued through ABACUS agencies. This is because, ABACUS to ABACUS agencies can see each other's bookings through a 'release' system whereas in order to ticket a ticket that is not booked in ABACUS makes it simply impossible for a ABACUS agency to issue. If they tried to do it 'manually' , they will be fined for making an 'illegal' booking.

Which now of course brings the topic of why SABRE ended up hosting ABACUS. ABACUS was initially hosted by Worldspan till 1997. That was when SABRE Asia-Pacific indicated that it had interests in serving Asia. ABACUS knew that if SABRE entered the Asian market, ABACUS would be eliminated out of competition and that it also couldn't do the 'controlled' inventory anymore. So it dumped Worldspan for SABRE - literally overnight. Worldspan sued and won one case. ABACUS must pay over $52 million in fees.

Not all travel agents in Singapore are dumb. They are just inhibited by the airlines who work against them as opposed to working with them like the rest of the true world. I know some really good agents who go out of their way to do a booking for you and explaining tickets in detail. There's not many - but they're out there. A few of my proteges too! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Actually, when I was working in Singapore a few years back, I was faced with a similar situation in that I had to issue a ticket on Mexicana. SQ didn't have a ticketing agreement with MX then, and even so, one couldn't ticket anything with them. So I called DELTA AIRLINES in the US to make sure that I can get a ticketing agreement with them, and with their authorisation, issued a MX ticket against DL ticketing plate with an authorisation code. My Singaporean supervisor didn't like it - but I did it anyway and my client saved a lot of money.

That's the biggest problems with Asian travel agencies.... no flexbility ! I can tell you more stories too , but I don't think this is the right post to do so.

So if people want to book tickets on CX's website, I say, go ahead. It's a great way to get tickets... and it's a great way to get full J and F class tickets priced properly from countries like Thailand if you need to pick up the ticket there at a later date.

[This message has been edited by Guy Betsy (edited 10-06-2001).]

Guy Betsy:

Interesting stories providing lots of knowledge. Thanks! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Thanks Guy Betsy for your clear depiction of the state of affairs. As an experiment, I went on to the CX website and booked a roundtrip bus. class ticket YVR-BKK, and then BKK-YVR (same dates). The first price is 3,751 USD and the second is 2,243 USD. Still, my travel agent was able to book the BKK-YVR ticket at about 150 USD less than the website price. Not much, but enough to keep me using agents in BKK. I assume that CX is still making a profit even at the lower price?

Here's something interesting.

If I book one-way BKK-HKG-YVR in F on CX on www.cathaypacific.com (the worldwide site), I can get it E-ticketed for a price of CAD 2945.

While if I did the same booking at www.cathay.ca (they use the ITN.net interface), I can't E-ticket it and the price is at a much higher CAD 5000 (approx).

I called CX in YVR, and was told they could issue the ticket at CAD 2945 instead of CAD 5000 (I asked them why, but they sort of had this "shhh don't tell anyone" attitude) [My guess is that they issued it SITI in "Thailand ticketing mode" instead of "Canada ticketing mode"]

Since I got curious and asked my travel agent (who quoted me CAD 5000 [approx] for BKK-HKG-YVR in F one-way, which is the same as the YVR-HKG-BKK one-way fare) why the fare didn't corresponded with the one in the "Sabre fare display". I looked at the "fare calculation" on the computer screen and it showed something like (don't remember exactly)

BKK CX X/HKG CX YVR YVRBKK5000.00 [approx fare]. When I recognized that YVRBKK meant "Higher Intermediate Fare".

So I guess the airlines want to prevent people from "buying 2 one-way tickets to save money" by implementing this.

Since www.cathaypacific.com allows e-ticketing, I guess I could just buy it there cheaper and have it "virtually issued in Thailand (SITI}" instead of www.cathay.ca or www.cathay-usa.com where it is "virtually issued in North America or "SOTO" so I can qualify for the ex-Thailand fare.



[This message has been edited by daniellam (edited 10-06-2001).]

daniellam - your knowledge of fares and ticketing is good but there are things you will not have caught on until you have worked in the travel industry as I have in Canada, USA, UK, Australia and Asia - to be able to pick up the subtle ticketing variations of why tickets and fares are as such with slight differences in pricing.

It has really nothing to do with the website fares or where you want the issue booked but rather WHAT CRS system that is pricing it and what tax has been applied. There is also the variation called DMC check which calculates the higher fare depending on the direction of the ticket. ONLY Canadian based computers will not charge the higher fare if say BKK-YVR is lower than the YVR-BKK fare, and you can issue the ticket in Canada. BUT not anywhere else.

My experiences in the travel trade have given me the edge in picking up these variations. I´d say that it was pure luck that I got to learn these tricks. Still it took me years to find out why things are the way they are now.

I didn´t go to a proper travel school for training. I did travel because I liked it and my current job permits me to continue this passion of mine parttime. Still I managed to get an ACTC title back in 92 in YVR, and at that time there were only less than 100 agents in Canada who got it. It didn´t do much except add more space to my name cards!

The first price is 3,751 USD and the second is 2,243 USD. Still, my travel agent was able to book the BKK-YVR ticket at about 150 USD less than the website price. Not much, but enough to keep me using agents in BKK.
- originally posted by commuter-

Note that in Canada, the agent only gets CAD$100 max per roundtrip ticket, in commission. He or she will not likely be able to pass the commission back to you as a ´discount´but in Thailand, the commission is 7% of the total gross fare. When a ticket is say in the thousands, the savings is substantial but one will end up carrying huge amounts of cash just to pay for the tickets as Thai travel agents will impose a 3-4% surcharge if you decide to use a creditcard for payment.

In Singapore, the commission level is 0-5% depending on routing.

In HK, it´s 9% but fares are very high in HK.

guy betsy: thanks for that insight into different crs systems. one question: does the fact that such "controlled inventory" is illegal in the West mean that the availability shown on ITN reflects the true position?

Guy Betsy, thanks for all the background. Quite interesting. Don't many agents in BKK use Amadeus or Galileo, btw? Is inventory info fed into these systems from Abacus also controlled?

Guy Betsy, you are right, I'm always walking into travel agents in BKK with huge wads of Baht. I think I'll need about 120,000 for my next round of tickets. It's a bit irritating, but for these savings, I can deal with it. Given the distances I travel, it makes me more competitive.

I hope the next FT thread is: "how to find the best rate for changing money in BKK!!"

I want to fly LHR-HKG,DOES ANYONE KNOW IF THESE FLIGHTS ARE EMPTY.i HATE TO PAY A TON OF MONEY IN BUISNESS AND SEE ECONOMY EMPTY.IF I CAN GET THREE SEATS IN THE BACK OF THE BUS I WILL TAKE IT.ALSO,I AM HAVING PROBLEMS ACCESSISING WEBSITE OF CP,I NEED INFO. ON THEIR SEATS IN BUISNESS CLASS ON THIS ROUTE.

First when are you flying? Even if the reservation system shows empty now, if you plan to Fly in December, the chances are slim for empty economy class cabin. Also, from my intuition, I don't think LHR-HKG route will be empty enough that you are the lucky one to get 3 seats for yourself.

You can try www.itn.com for the availability. (refer previous threads, sorry don't have links). Register there, and change your preference to "expert" so it shows the inventory. They also show the interactive seat map without having to make any reservation. BUT, there are many blocked seats in Y-cabin so even if the flight seems full from the filled up seat maps, it might be much emptier when you go onboard. (and vice versa)

By the way, "CP" refers to our old friend Canadian Airlines. You might want to take note of "CX", which is the code for Cathay Pacific Airways.


[This message has been edited by fakecd (edited 10-07-2001).]

Welcome to the board, argent00.

You can access CX's website for London's routings and fares. You may however find better deals through a consolidator based in the UK as they will have better fares for HKG and other places rather than CX themselves.

No one can guarantee that flights will be empty or full. But given the current situation in the Gulf now, it is most probably that asian airlines will be full as people try to avoid American/British and NATO countries' airlines.

Mind you, CX sometimes sells out their F and J class seats better than their economy!