Total Economy vs Semi Flexible - what’s the difference in flexibility?
 

I don't get it... :confused:

Other than the points (I assume all 'total economy; booking classes book into a 25 points fare and 'semi flexible' book into 50) how is 'semi flexible' any more flexible than 'total economy' when the change/cancel fees are identical??? (I tried a few different dates TLV-LHR and each in Total and Flexi and all showed $70 change fee and $150 cancelation fee in the fare T&C).

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You're right; I'm seeing the same for flights ex NYC.
Perhaps it's more flexible since when you want to change your tickets, you need to find the same fare bucket on the new flights, and the lowest fare buckets are hard to find.
Just a guess.

Total Flexible is S and you dont pay for modifying/cancel or no show, if you do S/S
Semi Flexible is Q and you will pay a fee (depends on route).

There's a difference between flexible and semi-flexible, that's for sure.
But what clubman asked is what's the difference between restricted and semi-flexible?

total economy = TLGO
semi = VHKNQBU
flex = SMY

T vs. V: T has more restricted ticketing time slot (within 3 days) ; for long haul $220 vs. $170 for cancellation ; changes $170 vs. $140
otherwise pretty much the same..

However I've already found a glitch about this in the new web site.
Try GRU-TLV on May 1st. No availability for semi, but there's total
economy for >$1000, which turns out to be U (which is almost fully flexible..)
Great work!

ELI

I see CXL as $220 for both semi-flexible and total economy on long-hauls.
Note the terms for semi-flexible indeed have $170 for cancellations, but only for ticketing until April 2010. Any ticket issued May 2010 and onwards is charged $220 for cancel/no-show.

As already mentioned it's not as straight forward as that...

Some of the Total Economy fares have the very same change/cancelations T&A though.

Good point, and not very clear if you just have a quick look at the penalty fees before booking.

Why they can't just update them with the current terms is beyond me...

Now I'm really lost. LY has 3 basic groups of Y tickets:

• Flex, equivalent to many airlines' Fully Refundable
• Semi-Flex, equivalent to many airlines' Semi-Refundable
• Total Economy, equivalent to many airlines' Non-Refundable

These groups are then sub-divided into specific fare classes:
Y, M, S
U, B, Q, N, K, H, V
O, G, L, T
I assume that's the correct order. Why would (I know this is clubman's question) mid-level and low-level have same cancellation fee cost? Why is there even that option on the low-level? Isn't that the idea, buy a ticket, and make it non-refundable; therefore it's cheaper?

I will disagree with you on this, Its very basic and simple....

See the posts above...

Very simply, it is not just S for Flexi, It's not just Q for Semi.

Fact is you can choose semi and get an N fare, so how exactly is it basic and simple?

Following on from my previous posts here, I was just pricing up a mid week ticket LHR-TLV-LHR assuming choosing a "flexible fare" would allow free cancelation, but no, even when choosing "flexible" rather than "semi flexible" there is a £100 cancelation fee, which is exactly the same as the cancelation fee for "semi".

If I book a ticket online and choose flexible I expect it to have more flexibility than a semi one but the fare rules are once again identical so I simply don't get it.

I think LY's whole fare structure is a total rip off.

Another difference is that S can be upgraded to business class with points whereas Q can't be upgraded with points.