Jorma

Yes, from my experience it goes into lowest available in respected cabin. And yes, Its a clever scam.

Cambo

At least, it feels like a scam. Though, when you initially would book a higher bucket, you would have paid the higher price, right from the start.

"Light" and/or the significantly lower fare buckets are interesting, when you are sure, you won't need to rebook the flights yourself and/or you can live with the limitations. IF you have 1h for a transit, the lounge is hardly useful, when traveling with no (or very limited hold luggage), why pay for that and the light fare might be very interesting. When you only go for the lowest price, you may be in for hidden from plain sight surprises. Unfortunately, that would apply to many passengers.

haapalainen

I must say to me this is not confusing at all. On the contrary, I have trouble seeing any negatives with this pricing model.

Customer should be happy, as no matter if he prefers Light, Classic or Flex, the airline will sell him a ticket in the lowest (=cheapest) booking class. 99% of passengers have no idea what booking classes are, they are only interested in price and what is included in the ticket. As long as Finnair manages to communicate Light, Classic and Flex clearly, everybody should be happy.

Of course some FlyerTalkers would have wanted to buy a full Y 800€ flex ticket for increased miles to their own FF program but this is such a small minority. And it is still possible for those idiots to phone the airline or a TA. Finnair Plus customers who want more points can choose Classic or Flex easily.

And finally, why is it a scam changing a Flex ticket and paying fare difference? It isn't any better paying more in the first place and less when changing. At least when paying less in the beginning one might save some money if doesn't need to change.

temppa

Well, AY revenue management does hard capacity control on upcoming flights. They zero the I-bucket about one week prior departure, even when there is 9R or even U available. This means de facto that Lite tickets booked to I-buckets becomes non-changeable (without up-fare) about week in advance. This is something they forgot to mention.

FFlash

Fair point if fare prices went hand in hand with fare buckets but for me it seems they dont. Say a certain T light may cost less 11months ahead than 1 day before takeoff even if available still 1 day before takoff. So it becomes playing two balls revenuewise.
I admit I am not sure it is like I said but it seems, happy to stand corrected

Jorma

In my opinion they are saying there is only 3 different prices, light, classic and flex, and leave out the thing that there is still different prices under these names.

Buy a flex ticket, if you want to change and there is availability in “flex”, you should be able without paying fare difference.

haapalainen

I don't think here the light, classic, flex pricing structure makes any difference. Finnair doesn't promise changes should be free, but instead fare difference and possible change fee must be paid. How they control booking class availability is a separate topic.

haapalainen

I think it is fair to assume that Finnair needs more than three fares per route. That is where the booking classes come in to play. Of course they could be more open that changing a flight might incur additional costs but afaik, on every airline one must pay extra if a ticket is changed to higher booking class.

I am quite happy to pay 300€ for a flex HEL-LHR return ticket rather than 1000€+ for a Y class ticket which gives me free change to any flight.

TTL

CDIJ used to be changeable without any surcharges and that has changed with this new scam-structure. R was there for poor but classy people. However, I find the most valuable asset in Flex to be able to cancel without (some) penalties.

Ed Size

They don t promise but they pretend that they are free. If one says "changes allowed" this suggest the changes will be free. Otherwise you should say "Changes allowed, a fare difference/fee is possible".

Maybe it just stupid me, but I read that the changes are free of charge if I buy a higher class. Anyhow since changes are also allowed on J light, I can book J light and pay the difference from there if I need to change the tickets.

intuition

The big difference is that ticket types used to be rather stable price-addon to the bucket. Now they are not.

Simplified example
It used to be like:
Cheap bucket is sold, and prices in light/classic/flex is 500/600/700
Cheap bucket is gone but next bucket is sold at 600/700/800


Now flex can be had in cheapest bucket but they did not intend to sell cheap flex. Only light is supposed to be cheap, so they need to add a price elemnt somewhere to make flex much more expensive than the bucket indicates

Cheap bucket is sold, and prices in light/classic/flex is 500/800/1000
Cheap bucket is gone but next bucket is sold at 600/900/1200

When only expensive buckets exists prices becomes 800/1500/3000

So when someone says "hey, it is a good thing they offer flex in the cheapest buckets" I think they didn't look at the prices. Flex ticket in cheapest bucket is nowhere cheap. (I am talking about J tickets, have not looked at other structures).

Using Finnair flexible date or 3.rd party searches can show you "cheap" j ticket, but if you try to book them in flex rather than light, the price can easily treble.

intuition

Could you direct me to a longhaul route & date where a business flex ticket is benfited by the cheap booking class?


I think the outrage is about the fare difference being out of control. You buy a flexible ticket, only to find out that changing it costs more in "fare difference" than throwing it away and get a new one.
On paper the ticket is flexible, as you are allowed to alter it. But in reality it is not flexible, because you cannot afford to pay another 1000-4000€ for the change.