HoKeY Question
 

I recently booked a ticket on CO to MEX in H and K. When I called to upgrade the agent said that this ticket was non-upgradable. I do not fly CO much but from what I have read here I thought all H,K,Y fares were upgradable?

HoKeY doesn't apply on flights to Mexico.

Assuming that your fare is published, I can't think of any reason the fare would not be upgradeable. Any chance there were simply no upgrades available?

Nope. The agent explicitly said that this fare basis was non-upgradable.

Did ya call back and ask another agent?

I called back and the agent said it was non-upgradable because it was a holiday fare. However, last week, the agent I booked it with said "of course it is upgradable, it is booked in H and K." Do I have any recourse, or am I stuck in Y?

Agents are clueless about Mexico upgrades. I called 3 times in December to ask and received answers ranging from "Mexico is only served by one class aircraft", "Mexican Government rules dont allow mileage upgrades" and "South America (sic) requires HoKeY".

Yep, got an automatic upgrade for myself and my wife on my last trip to CZM-IAH. No problem--My wife even got her upgrade at the 3 day gold window (on a separate itinerary).

As I understand it, if automatic upgrades are available, the tix are upgradeable in general.

[This message has been edited by tvx (edited 04-16-2002).]

Definitely upgradeable. Get new agent or call we-care.

wrong thread

[This message has been edited by UA*AA (edited 04-16-2002).]

I called WeCare and the CSR said that the fare was defiantly NOT upgradable but she added a note to my record allowing me to change my dates/time in order to find a non-holiday fare without a change fee.

I work at CO in reservations. The KHY requirement only applies in the BusinessFirst cabin (a plane which has a J class of service). Other markets such as Mexico, San Juan or Caracas go by the fare rules. Some K fares are not upgradeable, and you would only know this by reading the "rule conditions" portion of the fare rules.

Generally, if you got a good price on a Latin or Caribbean plane with a "Business" class cabin, it is likely not upgradeable.

ResAgent86 I appreciate your information and input, you wrote: I was looking to buy a couple of TUS-SJU tickets and upgrade with OnePass miles. The lowest fare is offered by AA, in the $600's, CO's lowest fare is over $1,000, the "International" segment is a "K" fare and includes the restriction: What's going on in Houston? Why would I want to consider to fly CO under the circumstances?

Old Gold: unless I'm mistaken, SJU routes from IAH are flown on a 738. Therefore there's no BizClass, only FirstClass. I always thought you could u/g a trip to SJU for 15k miles (17.5k?) one-way from any fare. I would assume that EUA might run (ha ha) on those flights too...

FWIW There is no (J) on IAH-SJU: C0 D0 Z0 E0.

The simple fact is Continental pricing in many markets is just not competitive any longer. I see this more and more, all the time now. It used to be "a little" higher, but CO fares in many markets are so very much higher now that I have to actually select other airlines. And, like you Old Gold, I'm an infinite elite, so its not an easy choice to swtich off Continental. But I cannot pay 1.5-3x the lowest available rate just to fly on Continental.

EWR-COflyer: You're right, the plane is a 738, but the printed rules, if I'm interperting them correctly, rule out OnePass mileage upgrades.

It's a vacation trip with the wife, so I don't want to play EUA-Companion upgrade roulette.

Why would I want to pay almost twice as much as the AA fare to fly CO on a fare that won't allow me to burn my OnePass miles to upgrade????....To earn more OnePass miles????? Gimmie a break! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

One thing to consider in the real world. Often on certain routes, an airline has a regular clientale that fills up a significant capacity on that route at fairly low prices. Examples are corporate arrangements where one or more corporate clients can have regular "commute" traffic between the two locations. For example, IBM employees can apparently fly RDU-LGA on AA for less than $60 R/T with no Sat night stayover or advance booking requirements. IBM employees take up a lot of seats on such a route.

The other example is of travel/tour consolidators that get a bloc of seats.

Any airline that has such an arrangement is not really trying to compete with the others who may not have such arrangements in those routes. In other words, their lower priced fares are already "sold out". Unless they have a lot of empty seats available there is no need to reduce the price for such routes.

Well that's true, certainly, and bully for them if that's the case.

But that would seem to only amplify Old Gold's point-- why pay more to get less?

I agree Jon. Just wanted to point out that this may not be an endemic problem with CO in not wanting to be competitive. All airlines are non-competitive in specific routes.

CO has a lot of arrogance but this pricing is not necessarily a sign of such.

I think that in the case I've illustrated there are two seperate issues.

The first is the non-competitive fare, we're looking at a mid-week departure, too.

The second issue is the inability to use OnPass mileage to upgrade on a fare that is obviously not a competitive match.

Just thought I'd ask if you ran the flights on all the sites available. I usually try several sites several time before I book anything. I've seen fares change 3 times a day and gotten three different fares on three sites. I can usually beat my employer's contract quote (on another airline) on CO if I try hard enough.

Good hunting. . .



[This message has been edited by tvx (edited 04-19-2002).]

Agreed http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

OG,

What website did you use to find that in the fare rules? I checked travelocity and ITN and neither of them displayed that line despite the fact that the agents said that this fare had that in there.

LGA_UAL: You have to use the CO website to find the upgrade restriction text, you won't find it on the rules displayed on ITN or Travelocity. It's displayed fairly close to the beginning of the fare rules.

If the fare's been changed you may not be able to find the rules for the fare basis you're ticketed in. I don't know of any way to pull up the rules for a ticket that has already been issued if the fare isn't still available. If that's the case you have to take their word for it.

p.s. Are you going to be around LGA on Thursday morning, by any chance?

[This message has been edited by Old Gold (edited 04-19-2002).]