... is less on BA than on QR?

depending on plating carrier.

On what plating carriers is BA less than QR?

I think the intention is you will need availability in both F and A to book a first class A fare.

I suspect “A” will eventually become primarily a mid tier business class bucket, except for dual-inventory A fares which allow booking into F if there is space in the A bucket and the F bucket.

Similar logic to the “instant upgrade” fares that are common in North America.

I don’t see it as a nefarious move. The main thing that should concern us is not that this is an attempt to remove AONEx flyers, rather that BA might not treat the AONEx product range as a high priority.

You're not getting to DXB on QR due to the embargo. So, if someone needs to go to the UAE, then QR isn't an option.

Oh, right. forgot. :eek:

I'm not sure which thread I should post this in, but AA, IB, JL, CX, QF and probably all other oneworld carriers except BA now allow (in fact, require) the use of the F bucket, not the A bucket, on the AONEx products on BA flights on LON-DXB and LON-BOS.

e.g.,

The exception actually comes in as a common override for all "A-" fares including travel on BA flights; it isn't specific to the AONEx product.

This also prevents the usual rule for downgrading to D, E, L or Y if those classes are full or unavailable for booking, so the exception may be reworded.

BA has touched their table but not yet in a useful way.

BA now also requires use of F class on those flights which no longer have A class under their implementation of the AONEx product.

I would expect this change to be formally incorporated into the rules soon enough.

What does "A required when available" mean? If the flight sells A, then book into A? I'm trying to understand this line in the context of following the two route-specific exceptions.

You read the table from the top down, stopping when a rule applies.

"A REQUIRED WHEN AVAILABLE" means that if the flight has A class and has space in A class, then the fare must be booked into A class (unless a rule further up the table already took precedence). If the flight has no A class, or if A is 0, then you can continue down the table.

If you wanted to restrict it book into A if A is ever sold on the flight, and not allow the passenger to downgrade into a different bucket if A is full, the wording is "A REQUIRED WHEN OFFERED".

[This is actually a human-readable interpretation of a set of logic rules. The computer doesn't read the table exactly when it wants to book a passenger into a bucket, but it gets the information from the same place as the table is constructed.]

By the way, I actually dug out the ATPCO documentation that describes the format of this table. The document is literally 272 pages long: just for the RBD table, just to describe the data format for allowing a fare to define which classes it books into. So don't feel too bad that it isn't obvious how it works. :)

Can you please interpret this in simpler English as Lon-Bos seems to be one of the sectors.

Is this a more restrictive interpretation/policy for BA than all other Oneworld carriers?

All of the oneworld carriers I checked now require you to book into F class on a BA-marketed flight between London and Boston under the AONEx fares.

Previously you booked into A, but could downgrade to D, E, L or Y (in that order). Not that you would.

Isn't it less restrictive since can book into F which generally has better availability than A?

I have booked a rtw ticket last night one the OW rtw website and will be calling BA today to pay.

I now want to make a couple of changes to the flights, not just dates/time but location.

Can I do this for free because I haven't paid for it or does it count as issued once its created and I would have to pay a fee?

Your itinerary has not yet been ticketed (this will not happen until after you have paid)
Any changes you make before ticketing are free of charge
BA might charge you a service fee for making your changes - I don't know they do or not