Smart Shopper

Recently I bought a CO ticket (005) in booking class Z ("Business Class") on operated UA flights in a two compartment aircraft. I am confirmed in F but on UAL all flights are shown in booking clazz Z ("Business Class"). I have to decide either to credit miles in DC (my preferred FP) or M&M (back up).

Looking at M&M's chart, may I ask you for your educated guess: Will I earn

• min 3.000 miles or double miles flown (my expectation) or
• min 4.500 miles or tripple miles flown as a lucky punch?

As I am under the impression that my Q is not covered, I took the liberty and opened a new thread.

Ari

How exactly are you on a UA flight in Z on a 2-cabin aircraft? Is it a Latin-American flight or ghost-C-cabin flight? Must be the latter since you are "confirmed in F" as you say. What flights are we talking about?

wanaflyforless

In my experience, your boarding pass will say F and BD will credit you F miles if you credit this to BD. UA sells domestic F as both business and F class, same plane and seat.

1kBill

UA has a bunch of "direct" flights between (USA city)-HUB-(int'l city) with international flight numbers and these flights will usually have inventory in the business class buckets.

Smart Shopper

Thanks for your question!

We are talking about (US-) domestic flights & (up to date) I am positve that UA confirmed me in F (seats are assigned) on a two cabibin AC and shows "Z" as booking class (double checked it on www.ual.com). If there is no change until I will fly, I am confident that I will board using a F-BP.

I am searching for input if UA will also "upgrade" my booking class (in A) or let it as it is. If so, according to M&M's milege earnings chart UA's (= operating carrier) Z (shown as Business Class) offers 200% miles flown or minimum 1.000 M&M miles/segment.

Smart Shopper

Thanks for your input (but I got a different answer on DC board).

As it looks like that I will earn at least double miles flown or 1.200 DC miles/leg (you know that in DC "Z" on CO earns a minimum of 600 miles or miles flown), I know what I do. Hopefully, I am able to share same experiences as you!

Smart Shopper

Thanks for your most valid input.

If it helps, I checked inventory on www.seatcounter.com. Non of my flights shown numbers in CDJZ. If so, I assume from you experience it's not a shoe in that a "F" BP produces "F" miles. UA will credit "biz" miles to M&M if I buy "biz class" fare, if CDJZ inventory is bookable. Correct?

Ari

Right-- flights with a "ghost" C cabin.

I'm not sure how you can be booked in Z on a flight that doesn't publish it. May I ask which flights (not dates, just flights) you are on?

flysurfer

This is very simple. As mentioned above, if the UA segment offers a Z bucket unter its native UA flight number, the CO ticket will translate to Z. If not, it will translate to A.

Of course, this information is only valid today, as the merged CO/UA might "enhance" their fare bucket scheme. Since CO is responsible for filing fares for CO/UA/LH, there's an expectation that UA domestic F will be sold as C/D/Z in the future, hence booking classes F and A might completely disappear on all UA operated 2-class flights. So proceed at you own risk for bookings that lie far ahead.

Smart Shopper

You might save some money and/or gain enhanced service on your future travel if you don't olny looked at offers from operating carrier but also search for fares offered by so called marketing carriers. I know that this is not very popular by consumers, but as every coin consists of two sides, there are advantages:

As booking classes are not harmonized, it's very common that booking classes of operating and marketing carriers are different: The validating or issuing carrier of my e-ticket in question was CO (= airline which recieved my money carrier with which I have credit in the event of irregularities). www.orbitz.com (I did not buy this ticket from them) showed me a an appealing CO business class fare; at the end it brought up that CO as marketing carrier sells First Class seats on UA much cheaper as the operating carrier.

As you might know, CO uses "Z" as (for One-Pass promotions non-eligible) lowest premium class booking class, with same base miles earning potential as in coach. Up to now www.ual.com shows me "Z" as booking and "business" as class of service. As "Biz" Class is not offered, I have confirmed seat assignments in "First".

To sum up: If you take the time and search on www.seatcounter.com for flights on CO as your favorite airline but for a city pair where CO does not operate flights, "Z" will come up very frequently. Therefore "Z" is - in your wording - published...

* As for the answer to my query the pair of city I am traveling is irrelevant, I don't name it.

Smart Shopper

I am confident that you know the routine, but your statement might be confusing for readers who are not as well informed as yourself.

UA as operating carrier does not sell "Z" fares on these flights in question, but CO as marketing carrier does. I bought my ticket on www.contintental.com and for this issue, your statement is incorrect: I bought booking class "Z" in business class" on flights operated by United. And on ual.com "Z" and "business class" is shown. I am confident that my CO ticket will NEVER translate into anything and the future will tell if UA will forward "A" or" "Z" to my preferred FGP provider.

flysurfer

My statement is correct. CO Z translates to UA Z (if Z is available) or UA A (if Z is not available). That is what I wrote, and that's how it is. As I said, it is quite simple. Plenty of folks who took advantage of the recent CO Z class error fare for LAX-SFO-LAS and return (obviously everything on UA metal) were very much aware of this and avoided getting on any LAX-SFO-LAX UA segments that offer booking class Z. It also applies to CRWSTARx tickets, where North American UA/US segments should be booked on flights that do not offer booking class D.

Smart Shopper

As you do not see the difference, we should agree to disagree. However, this is what you wrote in post # 9:
I am under the impression that you are talking about a different topic. Folks may or may not be aware that UA as operating carrier offers on selective domestic flights a “Z” booking class in a two class cabin (see post #4). But that's not the issue I am talking about. I am confident that these folks found a TA who issued a ticked on a CO-fare that should be booked in “Z” but was done in “A”. However, I booked on www.continental.com and my ticket shows “Z” on marketing carrier and my flight status shows “Z” on operating carrier.

Once again: A different topic (hint: CO did not book their "Z" fare in question in "A" & I did not find any note in fare rules that it should be done) & not correct as written. You might not see the difference, but these are fare rules you are talking about:

• UA: If D not available book B, if D not offered book A and if A not available book B provided that only First and Economy cabin offered on the flight.
• US: If Z not available book B, if Z not offered book A and if A not available book B provided that only First and Economy cabin offered on the flight.

Ari

flysurfer is correct; it is very simple:

Continental’s booking code Z will seat you in United First on two-cabin aircraft and United Business on three-cabin aircraft.

United does publish J/C/D/Z availability on certain two-cabin flights, and those will seat you in United First. They do this on flights that continue to or from international destinations, usually the domestic portions of flight numbers 700-999.

Now then, when book in Continental Z on a two-cabin code-share flight operated by UA (therefore you are seated in United First), UA transmits first-class mileage credit to your FFP unless you happen to be on a two cabin flight on which UA happens to publish J/C/D/Z (known as a ghost C cabin) in which case UA will transmit business-class credit to your FFP.

If you check the corresponding United flight for your Continental code-share flight and United is not publishing J/C/D/Z on that flight, then United will transmit first-class credit to your FFP.

If you check the corresponding United flight for your Continental code-share flight and United is publishing J/C/D/Z on that flight, then United will transmit business-class credit to your FFP even if it is a two-cabin aircraft and you are seated in United First. This will happen on UA flights 700-999 which are domestic continuations of international flights.

On second thought, perhaps it is not very simple . . .

Smart Shopper

Thank’s Ari, I agree it’s very simple if members are nice enough to answer questions:

UA transmits first-class mileage credit to your FFP unless you happen to be on a two cabin flight on which UA happens to publish J/C/D/Z (flight # 700-999) in which case UA will transmit business-class credit to your FFP (FWIW: If you read post # 7, I am not on one of these flights).

Otherwise it get’s complicated.