Experiences on waitlist/standby on LONEx
 

I had waitlisted a segment recently but couldn't find much info here on what to expect, so I thought I'd share my experiences.

Recently, I needed to change my LONEx to fly 4 days earlier between SYD-AKL. Of course there was no 'L' inventory so I had AA waitlist me on the flight I wanted (which showed Y9/B9/L0/K0...). I requested several time for the RTW desk to email Qantas to politely request opening inventory, but to no avail.

Unfortunately, until the day of flight, there was no additional inventory available. The waitlist still showed however in checkmytrip.com, so I held out hope the airport could process the standby request if there were open seats.

On the day of flight, I got to the airport and they denied any knowledge of a waitlist and initially refused to help. Qantas was (as is typical) very rde and denied any waitlist existing. Fortunately, we were able to find a sympathetic agent (after talking to several) who noted that the waitlist as it stood was 8 long and the flight had 17 open seats, so he just went ahead and confirmed us.

I was really disappointed by Qantas's poor attitude and disinterest in rebooking us despite having a relatively light load on our desired flight. By comparison, I was in a similar situation on Cathay but they opened up 'L' at 24-hours before the flight, so I could confirm the ticket ahead of time.

Anyone else have good or bad waitlist experiences on an economy ticket? It seems to be different than AONE or DONE tickets where if you miss out, there's usually a lower-class alternative on your desired flight.

I had one good experience through CX in BKK. I was traveling on a LONE4 and asked the agent at CX's downtown office in BKK to change a KUL-HKG sector I would fly a couple of days later. I was originally booked on the afternoon service and wanted to travel on the evening one (same day). L was zeroed out, but the agent tried to request a L-seat anyway and it cleared immediately.

I was unsuccessful later on the trip though. I tried to move my NAS-LHR sector on BA in order to fly one week earlier. Both BA and AA in ORD were unable to do this and the waitlist on the earlier flight never cleared although I enquired more than three weeks before the flight (of course NAS-LHR is much more difficult to clear than KUL-HKG).

So I was lucky with CX, but unlucky with AA and BA.

I can remember when I was a travel agent having to explain to people that L class is in fact a pretty low yield subclass - now you might say "Hang on a moment , an RTW fare is not cheap" but the problem is that by the time the airlines pro-rate out the various sectors the truth is that there is not a lot of revenue for them individually ( this is one reason why I always used to discourage pax from opendating sectors even when fare rules permitted it - better to be stuck with a confirmed seat that isnt quite your preference than to be stuck without a confirmed seat when your visa / money / schedule is running out )

Each airline has its own procedures for clearing ( or even for accepting ) waitlists and from what I remember QFs criteria are quite stringent - you did not explain exactly what you mean by 'recently' but please bear in mind that Dec/Jan are Summer school holidays in New Zealand and Australia and so there is quite a lot of competition for the lower yielding classes at this time of year ( even on a route like SYD-AKL with several daily frequencies ) I used to work for a major consolidator in New Zealand that had an 'inside' relationship with QF and I can tell you that in more often than not we had to advise pax not to waste their time waitlisting in L class as the request would either not be considered by yield management and so would sit there on waitlist forever without actually moving , or , would actually be rejected outright as not fitting the waitlist eligibility .

By "recently" I meant the week after new year's.

I agree that this is a tight route w/ heavy traffic. Was just surprised they wouldn't do anything for an OW Emerald on a flight that still had 10+ seats unsold. :(

One of the advantages (overlooked by many) of the economy *A RTW compared with OW RTW is that it books into a much higher booking class.

So far, I'd give the following advice then:

CX - good chance if flight is open (check EF)
QF - give it up!

Anyone have recent experiences on BA or other OW carriers on a LONE? It'd be good to collect this wisdom...

BA does not permit waitlisting for L class

Dave

Thanks for the info on BA.

Anyone waitlsited on AA or LAN? My other option in Sydney was LA800 which seemed to open up 'L' class (since their flight had room) one day prior. Not sure if LAN allows waitlisting though - the agent at the LA ticket desk in SYD didn't even know what a RTW ticket was...

I don't know, but be aware that some days the LAN flight is very full.

Note that QF codeshares the LAN flight with dedicated inventory - so if no availability under LA flight number there might be some on QF flight number or vice versa.