A series of bookings I have made and am about to make have made me long for Easy Sabre. Sigh . . .

Air Canada currently has about 3 L fare classes, the lowest of which is too restrictive in times for my travel. When I use any of the other booking software (Expedia, ITN, Travelocity, Air Canada's Personal Ticket Office), I cannot select the specific fare type (not even the specific fare class). This means I have to spend a long time on the phone with a reservations agent to book the fare type that I want. It seems that even they have problems doing this (but they can at least do it eventually) as it takes so much time compared to doing a straightforward full fare or lowest priced discount ticket.

I would think that spending 15-20 minutes on a single simple booking with a customer for a $250 US fare is not a good use of reservations' agents time.

I have made Air Canada aware of my concerns and they have promised to make fare class (but don't know about fare type) selection part of their new product roll out next month. Do any airline (e.g. United connection) booking engines allow one to select the specific fare class (e.g. L or V or Y) or type (e.g. LH7Y2K vs LGETAWAY vs LL7NITE)?

I wish.

There is a new site with a working beta version of some new software -- http://www.itasoftware.com./ -- that the developers say will include that option at some point. I haven't checked it in a few weeks so not sure where they are at with it. Looks promising. I think they're still looking for a buyer.

Not to mention poor use of a premium member's time. Can't you just call up, tell them what you want, and let them call you back? That's what I do, so far with excellent results.

I'm feeling your pain, BB. I've been trying (without much success) to figure out some itineraries that include both biz & coach class travel. Just try doing that. (I think the old United Connection would let you do it.)

Cheers,

'toad

On United I just book the lowest fare, and if I want to change something they just do it and generally waive the fees. Won't AC waive the change fees for SuperElites?

Yes QuietLion, AC is good about change fees if you do it right away so it is generally not a problem. I still have to sit on the phone with the agent for the same length of time though. I wouldn't try doing it at the airport as that fare class may be sold out by the time I get there. Also I like to book my upgrade at time of reservation and I know that it would cause no end of problems to upgrade and then change the discount fare type (I've been through that movie before).

[This message has been edited by BlondeBomber (edited 01-08-2000).]

JL has a subsidiary called Axess, which offers an online reservation service, Axess Travellers. This company is partially (a quarter -- I think) owned by, and linked with, AMR's Sabre.

This allows one to book on almost any booking class, so long as the airline does not establish special rules banning such reservation (for instance, booking by local agents only). You also have to meet various other ticketing rules that go along with low-cost tickets. Booking normal tickets is relatively easy, as you can perhaps imagine.

I tried AC's L class booking and it seems to work all right. I got 'HK' (seat booked) in a few minutes. AC taks a little bit of time for confirmation, because it is not one of those ''direct-acess'' carriers. (Direct-access carriers include oneworld airlines except CX, NW, CO, TG, UA etc. and of course JL.) Direct-access carriers provide immediate confirmation.

For JL, you can even show how many seats are left for booking FFP award flights except for the first class.

I am right now in NYC and can access this service via the Net.

This, however, is a fee service. (6,000 yen per six months, which comes down to 1,000 yen, around 9 U.S. dollars, per month). It is perhaps available for those who live in Japan or who can make payments by those credit cards issued in Japan.

The initial interface is in Japanese but once you get into the service itself (type your ID, PIN, and then 3 for reservation and JALCOMI for booking internaitonal flights, JALCOMD for flights in Japan), it is all command-driven using alphabets.

For available seats, AS and then the segement, for instance, YYZYVR, and date, 10FEB, and the carrier *AC.

You then get a list of available seats in each booking class. For the above flight, it listed J, C, Y, M, B, H,V, besides L.

It's handy, for sure, as you can make, change and cancel reservations almost anytime anywhere. (It is not a major online service and you encounter occasional service breakdowns -- unannounced, that is.) You can also do all other things that travel agents do such as preboarding seat assignments, meal request, FFP number registrations, fare search, fare rule check for each booking class, fare computation based on routes, etc.

[This message has been edited by Chiangi (edited 01-09-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Chiangi (edited 01-09-2000).]

Can you give us a website for this service so we can check it out..

Thanks,
Empress

Empress, referring to my post?

If so, it is:
http://www.axessnet.ne.jp/

But it looks like it's in Japanese only.