thanks T/BE20/G and rcs85551 for clarifying!

my zed experience is limited and outdated... and on the 'dependent of an employee of a third-party airline' :) can't say i was very well cued into its inner workings...
so this was rather interesting

and yeah city pairs must remain the same = makes sense :)

In addition to using them on the same city pair but a different airline (i.e. using a BA ZED LHR-JFK to fly on AA LHR-JFK), there should also be no problem using them on similar flights that should have similar tax, generally flights departing the same city at least, in many cases anything departing the particular country (i.e. using a BA ZED LHR-JFK to board AA LHR-BOS). These scenarios should both work as long as your ZED level (high/medium/low) is at least as high as the airline you are flying and the distance zone you paid for is at least as far as the flight you are taking.

The endorsement on the ticket is something along the lines of "Valid on all ZED-L carriers" or something like that, where the L indicates low zed. Whether they'll be accepted on a different route is up to the agent at the operating carrier, but I suspect most are sympathetic to the plight of a stuck nonrev!

Because interline tickets are issued by the employee's airline, rather than the operating carrier, you can only get them where your airline has a ticket counter. This makes ZED tickets much more convenient than ID tickets, because with the IDs you had to buy a ticket for any possible backup plan you wanted, whereas now you can buy one ZED and use it to cover a lot of backup options. For example, when I went to PRG last year, I bought one ZED ticket that I could use to get to pretty much any USAirways gateway city, on any number of different airlines. It was at a fare and zone level that would have covered PRG-MUC/FRA/CDG/LGW/BCN/MAD/AMS/etc. on OK/LH/AF/BA/IB/KL/etc. Fortunately, I was able to get on OK PRG-JFK nonstop, so I just refunded the backup ZED :)

I have to say I learned some new things about ZEDs! I have yet to use a ZED but curious to use one. The bad thing it looks like is that F/J is not usually available for ZEDs and must ride Y!

How accurate is SeatCounter? I just check ATL-FCO on 05-05-2009 and compared their availability against the seat map on Delta.com, and SeatCounter reflected a lot of open seats (usually 9 in each fare class). The Delta seat assignment map shows 4 open BE seats and 5-10 coach seats. I'm guessing all the available seats SeatCounter is reporting is due to how much Delta is willing to oversell the flight.

Your guess would be correct. If I was a Buddy Pass I wouldnt expect to get on this flight tomorrow, nor would I expect to sit in BE even if I made the flight.

The reason you're seeing a 9 in most of the fare buckets is that any airline won't refuse to sell you in a FB higher than the one of the lowest fare, that is to say that if there's a lot of seats to sell but most of the discount tickets are gone, you'll see Y9.... L0 U0 T0 and such.

*but* if say there's only 4 seats left, you might see Y4 B4 M4 ...L0 U0 T0.

I'm sure that made no sense when I typed it out (it did in my head because I work with it everyday), but hopefully somebody can find some better words than I did :(

Yes, you are correct. BE has about 5 seats open and for sale. Coach is already substantially oversold but DL is still willing to sell more. (they presume that if necessary they can upgrade some pax to BE, some will not show up and even if they have to bump a couple passengers - the compensation they will have to issue will likely be less than what somebody at the last minute would pay for even a coach seat).

Note DL-820 will be on a Northwest aircraft.

Buddy Pass Taxes from ATL to SDQ
 

Hi I wanted to know if anyone could tell me what applicable taxes in dollar amount will be assessed to a buddy pass flight from Atlanta to the Dominican Republic.

I will be flying in the early part of June and also needed to know since flights to and fro are one per day, do they fill up and how fast usually???

Thanks ahead!

Um, you better ask your buddy who works for Delta.........

$56.65 OW....
And from 1 to 7 June plenty of seats in BE/Y

Not sure for Buddy Passes, but on a regular ticket I usually pay around US$140. And they usually don't fill up in Business, pretty much there are always 2/3 medallion upgrades, 1 or 2 full Business, and the rest of the Business cabin is always filled with Non-revs.

I still am shocked that AMM was added to this list last winter as there are plenty of other airlines that can offer ZED fares out of AMM...are ZED fares the same like buddy passes where they charge 10% of the fare? Isnt that the way buddy passes are calculated?

Buddy passes are calculated purely on distance. You pay one price based on the mileage of the itinerary, whether you get into B/E or regular Y.

I use ZED tickets fairly often. Just recently this month I flew EZE-SCL on Air Canada and was given a first class seat. Last year I flew on ZED tickets ZRH-WAW on LO and WAW-PRG on OK - both times in coach. It just depends on availability.

The ZED ticketing chart posted above is out of date. ZED ticket prices were raised in 2008 as a result of the spike in fuel prices. They have not been lowered to pre-fuel crisis levels yet. Here are the current ZED prices:

Zone 1 1 – 450 $21 $32 $39
Zone 2 451 – 750 $23 $35 $50
Zone 3 751 – 1600 $30 $44 $59
Zone 4 1601 – 3200 $46 $63 $96
Zone 5 3201 – 4080 $52 $71 $120
Zone 6 4081 – 5000 $57 $82 $138
Zone 7 5001 – 6100 $68 $86 $145
Zone 8 6101 – 7100 $85 $104 $179
Zone 9 7101 – 9999 $85 $106 $180

In terms of buddy passes, on June 23 any new buddy passes ticketed will be more expensive as a result of the combined DL/NW integrated pass travel policies - particularly in the fees area. From June 23, buddy pass riders will be charged the same fees as revenue passengers will be charged.

A buddy pass embargo on a destination like AMM is no surprise, really. The JFK-AMM/AMM-JFK legs in particular stretch the 767-300ER to its limit in terms of payload/range.