Yeah I was trying to get the fare rules, as the agency originally told me it was fully refundable (which it says no fewer than 3 times on the email confirmation) but is now claiming it is nonrefundable. Weird that it's also gone from EF as well..

Well, if it was the Z fare above, it was almost certainly non-refundable. Did you buy it through AMEX travel?

As others noted, from the codes in the endorsement box, the fare looks like a discounted (i.e., corporate, consolidator or agency-exclusive) iteration of this:

V FARE BASIS BK FARE TRAVEL-TICKET AP MINMAX RTG
1 ZNNJ3SDZ Z¥R 590.00 R31MY ET23JA 14/1 ¥¥/ - WH01

CANCELLATIONS

ANY TIME
TICKET IS NON-REFUNDABLE IN CASE OF CANCEL/
NO-SHOW.

While it's certainly possible that the fare rules differ on the private fare you booked, it's unlikely that the refund provisions would differ.

The ticket is not endorsed NONREF. Thus ticket is technically refundable. I'M not sure though what effect/meaning REFISSAGY has. I'm guessing it means the agency must issue the refund (likely because of discount applied?).

Technically speaking, any ticket can be refunded. The airline could process a refund if it sees fit, or the travel agency could process a refund and potentially be subject to a debit memo if the fare rules state the ticket is not refundable (which I'm 99% certain is the case here). You're correct that REFISSAGY means the issuing agency must process a refund, assuming one is permitted.

I don't think the OP will get very far with the argument that since the endorsements line does not specifically say "non-refundable" in some way, a refund is due. However, the documentation supplied at the time of purchase assuring passenger the fare WAS refundable would be of more use to fight this.

Actually (at least for a ticket without REFISSAGY) a ticket must be marked NONREF otherwise it is refundable. If OTA issues ticket without it, technically the ticket is refundable. If passenger demands it, airline will refund and charge the OTA due to incorrectly issued ticket.

Just closing the loop here with a DP (not sure if people prefer this even though it's an old thread). Delta ended up refunding it without too much hassle although Amex/Expedia refused (didn't try to escalate as they no longer have email support). This was indeed the Z fare to Santiago through Amex Travel. Ended up even exchanging it three times due to border closure, but finally gave up.

Hey, bumping this thread for curiosity about how to decode fare codes..

Looking at unreasonably high prices for LAX-BOS-LIS-JFK-LAX in June (8-19). Fare bucket issue? Married segment issue?TO: QHW72NCZ
RETURN: LHW46NCZ
Is W the Comfort+ fare bucket? What do all the other codes mean?

It's the Q fare on outbound that is mostly driving higher price. It's not a married segment inventory issue as there is only Q bucket open on standalone LAX-BOS flight too (as seen below). Comfort+ fares are dual inventory fares. You need to look at both W/S C+ buckets and the coach buckets to figure out which particular C+ fare is bookable as they have both W/S booking class and underlying coach basis class (first letter of fare basis code). With only W and Q coach class open, only C+ fares with W booking class and Q fare basis class would be bookable.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f48cf1e351.png

xliioper provided the practical answer, but if you're curious:

QHW72NCZ requires Q space and is based on the Q- fare family (Q), is a high-season fare (H), for travel on weekends or market-normed "high period" days of the week (W), a 7-day advance purchase (7), minimum stay of 3 days or Saturday night (2), non-refundable (N), books into Comfort Plus in W class (C), and is in fare series Z.

LHW46NCZ is a W fare with L space, high season weekend, with a 14-day AP and 7-day/Saturday night minimum stay, also non-refundable.

Yes, good info. As noted, the 'C' in second to last letter indicates the fare books into W class. If second to last letter is an 'I', the fare books into the C+ S booking class. The S class version of fares is $150 cheaper on a each-way basis than W fares (the Q fares are shown below, but differential is same for the L fares). If there was S bucket open in one direction, total price would be $150 cheaper and price would be $300 cheaper if S bucket was available in both directions.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...b13e69cdd0.png
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...db274508c4.png

Thanks to both xliioper and findark !!

Does this mean that Delta may not yet have opened up some better (cheaper) fare codes? I've seen that referenced before, that bookings far in advance don't have all the normal fare codes available.

Yes, for C+ fares they don't have any S bucket open in either direction (which is the cheaper Comfort+ bucket compared to W bucket class). But it seems fairly common to see routes where DL never has S bucket open on flights and only has the higher priced W bucket availability. They may or may not ever open S bucket on these flights at some point in future. But with C+ fares, there is also dependence on the coach class bucket inventory due to the dual inventory checking. The W/S buckets plus the coach bucket inventory availability act as a tuple to determine which specific C+ fares are actually bookable. If they were to open K or lower inventory on LAX-BOS-LIS flights, that would also lead to lower C+ fares being available for booking than current Q basis C+ fares.

The lowest possible C+ fares on a route would be an S booking class C+ fare with a V fare basis (an S+V fare tuple). Although with a number of routes, they don't always have fares as low as V class available for booking. It's not uncommon that fares only go as low as T or X class on certain routes (especially during heavy demand seasons).

So it seems the airlines believe a great EU travel season is upon them, but perhaps the economy may change that..

It seems that there's no harm in waiting at least a month to track prices. Or in other words, no reason to book right now this far out.

The problem with C+ fares is that they are only bookable on Delta metal over the Atlantic as AF/KL does not have an equivalent booking class (Economy Comfort on KL is not a separate fare class). This means you can't book itins that involve LAX-AMS or LAX-CDG codeshare flights with C+ fares. These flights can only be booked as Economy, Premium Select, and D1 fares. With fewer flight options available for booking, this will generally translate into higher fares.