SAA Fare Classes Question
 

It's my first time flying SAA. What's the difference between the three economy fares: saver, classic, select?

If you click the radio buttons next to those fares the fare class and a list of rules will appear below. From a dummy booking for JNB/LHR I see the following:

- Saver: G class; non-refundable, no changes
- Plus: T class; 25% cancellation fee; $175 change fee
- Classic: S class; 25% cancellation fee; $100 change fee
- Select: K class; Fully flexible, refundable, upgradeable

As per Cheetah_SA's response, the best way to find out is to do a dummy booking and look at the restrictions.
The full list of Economy fares on SA is (to my understanding and in order from fully flexible and most expensive downwards): YMBKHSQTVLWG. So within one of these 'blocks' (like 'Saver'), there are still different buckets, which explains that sometimes there are different fares within the block for different flights on one day (for Domestic flights). I am not sure where in the bucket list the 'borders' of the different 'blocks' exactly are.
Only YMBK fares are upgradable with Voyager miles. Fares from T downward only earn 50% Voyager miles.

Great information - thank you. It enabled me to get dynamic about a trip I am booking.

BTW - for the economy fares on SAA, there is probably a small change in the order of fare classes from YMBKHS to YBMKHS (the B and M swap around).

I got the agent to access the booking engine today, and got these fares for PER-JNB return for 9/1/12 returning 19/1/12 on SAA (i.e. no Qantas fares since I am trying to upgrade on Voyager)

CLASS FARE
S 2537
H 2800
K 2923
M 3240
B 3552
Y 3974

I was originally being quoted the B class fare since the flights were pretty full on those days, and by changing my dates a few days, I got the K class fare - saved myself $600. That's a big win, so again, thanks for the insights which enabled me to do this ^

K is obviously the 'sweet spot' for upgrading. But now you need to see if there are actually upgrades available for that day. Otherwise the choice might be to spend the extra $600 to be able to upgrade (this of course assuming that upgrades are available on the more expensive day). The problem I usually have with SA that international upgrades are hard to get. But I have never tried PER/JNB, so you may be OK.

The hidden gem for these is http://www.expertflyer.com/

For any flight, it gives you the booking classes and the number of seats available in each class. Not very Firefox friendly, but works well in IE

If you are having specific problems with Firefox please email us and let us know what the issue is. ExpertFlyer is tested against all major browsers and we aren't aware of any Firefox issue.

But sadly (for this specific query), SA is not on the list of airlines which are supported as far as awards / upgrades are concerned.

I recently booked a Saudi Arabain Airlines Super Saver ticket and tried to change it. It cannot be cancelled and can only be changed by upgrading to the next class. The next class can be cancelled with a fee. I wonder if anyone has upgraded such a ticket and then cancelled it or will the agent see it was originally a Super Saver ticket and refuse cancellation.

SAA = South African Airways....

Assuming this is indeed SA (South African Airways :(), then the conditions for the original ticket will be carried over to the new ticket. No nice try, but no cigar as they say (although I must say I dont have actual experience with this scenario).