kirk.gaudreau

Hello,

I have a situation where I helped a client to check on a flight to Hong Kong on a specific date, say Dec 31.

I've checked with say Air Canada on Sabre for the cheapest class, i.e. K and nothing shows in Sabre. However, given the specific airline, destination and date, I was able to find on a different class, say class A.

I talked to my manager about it, and he did something on Sabre. To make long story short, he was able to charge the client for an 'A' class amount. but my client gets the class 'K' seat.

I tried to check all the history but wasn't able to find anything.

Does anyone knows how it was done?

Yoshi212

I don't know the answer but if I was charged for an A but booked into K where the terms are different (https://insideflyer.com/forums/wiki/...oking-classes/) I'd be very very likely to never use that agency again & file complaints.
According to the previously linked site some fares going to different destinations are changeable under A with higher earnings and under K are non-changeable with no earnings.

kirk.gaudreau

I do completely agree with you Yoshi, if I were the customer.

But since my main objective is to really learn Sabre, I left out a lot of details.

For example, if the customer were to order directly online, the air ticket will be much higher than what we invoice the customer (even though it was say class A), due to the requested date of flight, airline company and destination.

That being said, what my manager did, will it have anything to do with my manager's connection with the wholesaler?

i.e. there's an agreement of reserved specific seats etc.

Or Sabre has the functionality of 'locking' or 'hiding' history from subordinates etc.

Caroao

you can force a fare, either with a phase in **W1, or my forcing the fare base in the PQ by adding *Q in the WP format. Either way will remove the sabre guarantee on the fare...so there's that.

Most agencies are allowed to use guaranteed airfare waivers with the main 3 if either within 24 hours or 1 business day of the booking time, but they always require the original inventory to be in HK1 and not have had any changes done in *HIA. Depending on your agency's volume, it may have access to overbooking waivers, but again, would still require the class to match the fare base on the ETR

MSPeconomist

If you're trying to learn, why not ask your manager?

However, if your manager fraudulently issued a ticket in K but priced as A, perhaps you should look for a new job.

kirk.gaudreau

I did ask my manager, and he didn't want to teach as he's afraid that if we know this technique or secret, once we have enough customer database, we'd set up a company ourselves.

kirk.gaudreau

Hi Caroao,

Thanks for replying! Sorry, am still new with Sabre, so does not fully follow what you said.

Any chance you're able to give examples?

It'll be better too if it's with the 'code' as in, how the PNR are originally created and then follow by how to change to the class, which wasn't found but still able to book it to get the cheaper price, using a phase in **W1, or my forcing the fare base in the PQ by adding *Q in the WP format.

Caroao

Well was the ticket issued in the A or in K class with the K fare basis? From your OP it sounded like he booked the A but charged the K, which is gonna lead to a debit memo without an airline waiver. There are very little scenarios where the airline would tolerate this and it honestly doesn't sound like you are quite there. When the bossman wants to show you, then you can learn from him. I won't give you advise on how to break the rules.

If you had no K on availability, but he was able to get the K class HK'ed in, he either waitlisted it and it cleared, or someone at AC overbooked it for him. Note that it is possible for airlines to have different availability than what shows. If you pull "regular availability", it will be with a cross, 112JANYULYYZ¥AC. If you want to pull the positive availability that the airline has access to, called "Direct Access availability", you use the pilo instead of the cross, 112JANYULYYZ¤AC. It is possible he just pulled direct access which had a K while regular did not have any.

If you look in *HIA, on the day this happened, they will be a line starting with AS and then the segment info and then it will say LL1/HL1. That means he waitlisted the segment, and later the airline will have a similar line but with a XS, meaning they cancelled the waitlist and in the same transaction, it will be KK1, meaning they confirmed the segment and cleared the WL.

If you have the KK1 from the airline but no LL1 segment from the agency, that means the airline overbooked it for him.

You can search for pnrov340 in format finder and it will help you how to read *HIA. Otherwise, it is unfortunately very hard for me to guess how the K got in there without seeing the history lines.

If you want to learn about phase 3.5 and phase IV, you can search for tktqf503 and phvfo004. if you use enhanced price quotes instead of IVs, you can search here qrxfo001, but again don't go do these without the boss's approval. All of these remove the sabre guarantee on the fare so you are responsible for any errors, so don't even bother if you haven't been thought properly.

But here's my 0.02$. If your boss doesn't want you to mess with segments or fares, there's a reason. It doesn't take much to make a transaction lose the sabre guarantee which exposes you and/or your agency to a debit memo, which can get real expensive, real fast. You can force Sabre to do almost anything you want, but doesn't mean you should. You didn't have K, so you offered A at whatever WP said it was. That's your job. If someone else wants to mess with the fares or segments, let them, and then it's on them. At least you won't be their meat shield.

edit: I've just reread you OP and it doesn't even make any sense lol. on AC K is lower than A. On the third line, you said he was charged the A fare but he got the K seat, which although possible doesn't make any sense. If he got a K, he can also get an A, and if you're charging the A, then book the A. Now if you said it in reversed, he got A class segment but had a K fare basis, this is where the above comes in