flyzabit

I start booking it on Expedia, and then click on the fare rules link. It will show the bucket letter, e.g., "S" for AUS-CPH using B6 to FI economy standard.
Does anyone know where the earnings table for FI itself has disappeared to for Saga points? (Yes, I agree that AS points may be better for US-based folks, or trade via Points.com.)

DaveH

Bump. Amazing that there isn't a simple rate code table posted somewhere.

Donna49

Icelandair has had a major change a few months back. They introduced Economy Lite and discontinued Economy Comfort. There is only Economy (lite, regular, flex) and Saga. If you are looking at the page on the AS website regarding earning AS miles by flying FI, everything is different now.

Don't know where you would originate your FI trip, but with this change, fares on FI from west coast (SEA, PDX, YVR, YEG, ANC) are substantially higher. I've been a Saga Gold FF with FI for decades, and their FF program awards points, not miles, for the particular route being flown. Don't know how the FI award points convert into AS miles; but, with this change, all flights from any station in NA to KEF earn the same points, depending on class. A ticket from SEA earns the same points as one from BOS (for same class), even though the ticket price could be double (or higher).

dmwalker

So, we used Chase points to purchase our current Icelandair tickets. When I go to the Icelandair website, it says we have "Economy" tickets. But, they list four different "Economy" classes (I know they discounted one of them, though). So, how do I determine which of the remaining three "Economy" classes we are in? I'm trying to figure out if we have to purchase bags or if our bags are included.

Also, since I didn't purchase the tix directly from their website, will they still email me the tickets (we bought them months ago but are heading out in about two weeks) or do I just check in online and print out boarding passes like any other airline? We've never flown them before. TIA for any assistance.

Donna49

Here is a link to FI fare comparison table, if you don't already have it:
https://www.icelandair.com/support/o...es-of-service/

It shows Economy Comfort, but that fare has not been sold since the change last spring.
As you are not Econ Lite, you have either standard Econ or Flex Econ; checked bags are included in either fare..

You can just check-in online and get your BP that way, but I would recommend you have a copy of your ticket
(or at least the receipt) showing when you are returning, should your length of stay come up at Passport Control.
Something that shows you have a ticket back leaving within 180 days.

Just re-read your post and wonder if you meant discontinued as opposed to discounted, which is what is written.
I took that to mean you know you are not in Economy Lite, as this is a discounted fare, and you had either
Economy Std, Economy Flex, or Economy Comfort to choose from. As Comfort is gone, and the other 2 have free bags,
the answer is as above. But if you think you may have Econ Lite, send FI a tweet (there are pretty good at quick responses)
and get it clarified, and perhaps ask for a copy of the ticket as well.

If you have the fare basis code (a 6-7 letter code), the last 2 letters identify the fare class: LT=econ lite, EC=std econ, FL=econ flex, SA/B=Saga

Hope you can get your question resolved.

dmwalker

Hi Donna49,

I was able to get help from their customer service via Twitter. Surprisingly fast, too. Anywho, so they looked up my booking and told me that I had economy light, as I had suspected. So, we had to pay for our bags. I couldn't do it through the website since every time I loaded my trip on there it'd return a baggage error. So, they took care of that, too. They sent me a link to pay for the bags and I checked my trip on their website and the bags do show up. $304 for the bags R/T from US to Denmark. Ouch.

Anywho, the lesson here is that if you book economy light, the record on their website will only state "economy". Bags cannot be purchased online in advance -- you have to ask their customer service to do it for you. And, the quickest way to get a hold of them to get things resolved is clearly via Twitter.

Donna49

Glad you got an answer, even if it was not the one you wanted.

That is the case these days as almost every carrier has some version of an econ lite fare, to compete with the ULCCs.
Just curious if your purchase website, using cc points, gave you the option of selecting a better econ fare, of if you
only had the choice of econ or Saga, and the econ just defaults to the cheapest econ fare, which is the lite version.
It would be nice to be able to book std econ with cc points, but perhaps they can't do it.

Hope you have a nice time in Denmark

dmwalker

@Donna49,
I booked them several months back and I honestly don't remember if there were other options available. I do know that I had the same thing happen with a United flight. I booked via Chase Sapphire using points and the ONLY flights I saw were the Basic Economy ones. This is the second time I've had this happen and, from now on, I will double-check on the airline's website for the exact flights / costs and then if not available on the Chase travel website, I'll call their customer service number and have them manually book the flights.

I also noticed on the Chase travel site that an error pops up when I try to book a flight more than 9 mos in advance. It took me a couple of days and some research to realize that I could call in Chase Travel CS and they could bypass the system and book any flights that were available from the airlines. During those two days, the flights I wanted went up $150/pp.

I guess I have to work a lot harder now to avoid the traps and pitfalls that the airlines and Chase's booking systems present. I miss the good ol' days where you pay one price for a flight and you didn't have to worry about being nickel & dimed for every little thing. I wonder if there will come a time where those basic & lite fares won't include use of the bathrooms, LOL. Well, I laugh now, but who knows...?!?

Jean-Baptiste Legrand

When I looked at a "business" class fare on FI being offered via Orbitz, it shows the fare class as "A" ... is this even possible? Since the AS mileage-earning chart only shows C, D, J, and E as being bona-fide Saga class fares?

mausmaus

A ticket with fare class A is not a Saga ticket. It used to be a premium economy fare, and now it's just a regular economy seat. Lots of outdated FI information floating around--even Seatguru still hasn't updated to reflect the loss of Economy Comfort.

AS/FI redemption charts have been aggressively devalued over the last few years to the point that earning AS miles on FI is largely pointless except on high-fare tickets.

Jean-Baptiste Legrand

So even though I get to sit in the J cabin and get the perks like free meals and lounge access with that A fare, it still accrues miles like a Y ticket?

mausmaus

Correct. Class A is Economy Comfort. Because that cabin went away in the spring, everyone with booked tickets within a certain window of time will get a Saga upgrade instead, but they're still Y seats on the awards front. It's a nice perk of the phaseout, since it includes a few amenities that EC+ never did when it existed.

However, it accrues AS miles like a premium Y ticket because that's what it is and always was. Y, E, and A were Economy Comfort and were never J cabin fares. Occasionally, EC+ passengers would get a Saga seat on a space-available basis, but it didn't include the Saga food or other amenities. Interestingly, E is now "discount" Saga (cf. C, D, J "true" Saga fares) and Y and A are now just high-fare Economy (won't even get a Saga seat once the EC+ ticketing phaseout is complete).

I'm assuming you've confirmed that your seats are indeed in the J cabin, in which case you've gotten it done inside the window.

Single_Flyer

If you book on Expedia today, it lists the ticket as "Business (A)".

mausmaus

As mentioned, Y/E/A fares are generally being seated in the J cabin while they complete the EC+ phaseout. They're temporarily available as "discount" business fares as a result of discontinuing the premium economy product.

Has zero impact on mileage accrual agreements, which still treat them as the economy fares they are until they get renegotiated.

Single_Flyer

I just booked a Saga Flex (highest fare class). It is also A class. So strange.