Decoding "Fare Details" for Ticket Class
 

Long back story, however, I need to be able to track back and uncover the fare that was booked on a number of Delta tickets. I have confirmation #s , ticket #s and fare details. I'm thinking Fare Details are the only piece of data needed to specify the actual fare class that was purchased (?).
For example: the below is a $671 one-way flight to DTW from LAG June 2019. What from this string can I interpret what class was purchased?
Fare Details: NYC DL X/DTT DL SAN602.79KA0VA0FJ USD602.79END ZP LGADTW XF LGA4.5DTW4.5

Here is another example: this is a nearly $1400 RT SAN/ATL July 2019
Fare Details: SAN DL ATL458.61UAUQA0FB DL SAN798.14BA0PA0FL USD1256.75END ZP SANATL XF SAN4.5ATL4.5

Is there anything else on a trip confirmation email from Delta that I could look at in order to confirm this? Of course I don't believe the seat numbers that are showing as these could be easily adjusted. I realize things were different a year ago but these prices for economy class seem outrageous. I have plenty more examples if they would help!

Thanks in advance!

All the information you need is right there in the Fare Details string.

Fare KA0VA0FJ - the seventh character in this fare code means First Class F-Upsell fare

Fare UAUQA0FB and BA0PA0FL - the seventh character in these two codes means First Class F-Upsell fare

Reference:
https://pro.delta.com/content/agency...structure.html

While the second to last letter in fare basis codes tells you these are all First Class fares, it doesn't tell you the actual booking class if that is what you want to know. KA0VA0FJ fares book into 'I' booking class. UAUQA0FB fares book into 'Z' booking class. And BA0PA0FL fares book into 'C' booking class. There is a dual-inventory check made when selling these fares. There must both be inventory in the coach bucket indicated by the first letter of the fare basis code, as well as inventory in the booking class bucket for the fare. Basic Economy and Comfort+ fares work the same way. So when a particular coach bucket zeros out, the BE, C+, and FC fares automatically also increment to higher fares along with the main cabin coach fares. So if a flight has inventory in 'Z' FC bucket, but no inventory in the coach 'U' bucket, you won't be able to buy the UAUQA0FB fare on it. At any rate, while DL uses the term 'upsell' fares and the fare basis codes start with coach class letters, these are all considered true FC fares and not coach fares as indicated by second to last letter in fare basis code.

This sounds like a business auditing tickets. As such it should be noted that if the employee paid to upfare to F the last ticket will show the full price of the ticket, not necessarily what the company paid.

If OP paid to upfare after purchase, presumably OP would have original receipts with original coach fares listed. Not exactly clear why OP seems to think these are coach fares (is it because of the fare basis codes?). If the Fare Details section is coming from the Delta email receipt, the main itin section of the receipt should list class of service booked along with booking class for each flight -- First Class (I), First Class (Z), and First Class (C).

Makes sense... but if the itinerary/receipt provided includes the F code within Fare Details, that would indicate that First was actually purchased correct? And yes, similar to business auditing tickets that were submitted... it's all about digging into whether someone is falsifying documentation related to business travel yet not smart enough to change more than just the seat numbers included on the Delta confirmation. :)

I think these are coach fares as that is what the flyer submitted these as.... some portions of the Delta receipt have been modified.

If the company paid for a economy ticket and flier paid to upgrade then a new ticket is issued. The original ticket paid by company is simply used as a credit for the new one. They should only be claiming a portion of what is shown if that is the case.

The fares you list are first class fares. If they're claiming the total fare listed is a coach fare, they're lying.

These are what used to be called UP-fares. Basically as noted above in another post, they used to be economy tickets with an instant upgrade to F if the correct F fare class was available. However over two years ago DL did away with the nonsense of calling them economy fares that allow you to sit in F. These are straight up F fares. The fare starts with an economy fare class(K in your case), but the F towards end denote that this is really a First Class fare. Basically these fares require availability of both the economy fare class (K) and the corresponding First fare class (CIDZ). This basically allows DL to tie the price of a First class seat to the availability of the economy cabin
. The higher the fare in economy available, the higher the fare for First. (In most cases anyway)

Note that it can be the case (not frequently) that the available F fare is lower than economy. This is rare due to the way most F fares are setup nowadays. (As I described right above)

Appreciate all the input on this -- now I'll let my attorney take over from here!

Bumping this as I'm in a similar predicament to look for a fare basis. This is all I see on the receipt


NONEND/REFISSEAGY/L-973E/APZX

Fare Details: LAX DL X/ATL DL SCL250.75DL X/ATL DL LAX250.75NUC501.50END ROE1.00 XFLAX4.5ATL4.5ATL4.5

You seem to have a RT fare from LAX to SCL with a connection in ATL in each direction. The basic fare is $250.75 each way, for a total fare of $501.50.

My guess is that the fare code is XFLAX, which would be X class, but it looks too short. The NUC also doesn't look like a fare code, and N class should be coach award class, but this isn't an award ticket. I'm guessing that the 4.5ATL stuff is some sort of airport fee or tax. ROE1.00 could also be some fee or tax. The puzzle is that NUC appears where I would expect to find the fare code.

NONEND means that the ticket cannot be endorsed over to another carrier.

I'm sure that someone who's more of an expert than I am will be along soon.

The fare basis codes are missing (they should come right after fare amounts if you look at the above examples), so it's difficult to make heads or tails out this. The "XF" is supposed to have a space after it and is the two-letter code for the Passenger Facility Charge (PFC) which are $4.50 for LAX and ATL. The "X" has nothing to do with the fare class.

This appears to be some type of special ticket. Note its marked to refund issuing agency and appears to have some type of certificate/discount/whatever code applied.

What specifispecifically are you looking to know.

Is the above a cut/paste from an email from Delta Air Lines, or was this ticket purchased from a travel agency of some kind?

I'm guessing it was this fare -- https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mile...l-j-695-a.html
EF shows a short-lived Z fare available around 1/22 with fare basis code ZNNJ3SDZ. EF no longer has the fare rules.

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.