Fare rules
 

We're looking at booking a trip online where we know for sure when we want to go but not yet when we want to come back. All right, thinks I. We'll just book Economy-Fixed for the outbound and Economy-Flexible for the return -- that way, for a 100€ service charge we'll be able to change the dummy date I enter now for the inbound, when we know the actual date we want.

Then I noticed this warning at the top of the page:

> Please note
> In case you have chosen a return trip with different fare types the
> most restricted fare rule will apply

Does that mean that my 'method' will in fact not work? That the 'most restricted fare rule' applies to the entire itinerary? If that is the case, why do they offer the Flexible option for hundreds of euros more if you don't get the advantages (change of inbound; refund) from it?

cheers,

Henry

SK actually advertises this flexibility, so you should be fine. The fare rule/clause you read is about the kombi construction. So if the outbound or inbound is constructed with two fares, the most restrictive apply.

Say you are travelling LLA-ARN-LHR-ARN-LLA and the fare is priced LLA-ARN (like WFIX)+ ARN-LHR(say YFLEX), the most restrictive of the two (WFIX) will apply to LLA-ARN-LHR.

Clear as mud? :)

Oliver is indeed right. But it is a bit tricky for Intercont as they don´t sell one ways (except for C and A class). This means you may construct a r/t trip with the outbound being fully flexible (such as YFLEX or DFLEX) but you will still have restrictions on that leg if the homebound has a saturday/minimum number of nights rule. Meaning you can not change the outbound to skip saturday night as that would violate the fare rule of the homebound leg.
So, there is a situation where the "other" fare rule affects the first one and you will not be able to change date of your DFLEX even if availability is right there.
This does not apply to intra european travel as those fares are technically one ways and don´t have any minimum stay or saturday/sunday rules in them.

While we're on the subject of booking classes, I also have a couple of questions.

1. How come do the SK fares which are shown on my itinerary as "B Premium Economy" (on two separate legs) end up as "Economy" and "Economy Discounted" on my point statement?

2. Related question. Isn't "Premium Economy" a synonym for SK's Economy Flex fare? If so, is it normal that the actual operator of the code-shared flight (BT or LO in this case) does not offer the 'middle' class, so I get zero service on BT having paid a certain premium?

The question is which GDS/Software generated the itin. If they have not updated their table, a Eco extra fare may just show up as Eco and vice versa. Only Y & S SK fares on SK metal give you Eco extra.

There are some strange occurrence because of the faulty table maintainance: expedia or orbitz shows you the wrong seat map to choose your seat, UA codeshare S fares (equiv to SK W fares) show as eco extra etc.

Mud can be thick and complicated to get through. Airline logic is muddy indeed and I can't say that I agree with this example. The example you gave is not a round-trip made out of two half rt-fares but rather an end-on-end combination. In theory (though airlines may apply different rules) this would mean that the WFIX-rules are applied for the LLA-ARN sector and the YFLEX-rules are applied for the ARN-LHR sector. If the W-fare is non-refundable but the Y-fare allows refund than you can get the ARN-LHR part refunded.

Had the ticket instead been:
LLA-ARN-LHR: WFIX
LHR-ARN-LLA: YFLEX
then the most restrictive would apply for the whole trip on most airlines.

SAS is an exception here though. As all their intra-European fare are constructed as one-ways the fare rules apply only for part they are booked on. This means the WFIX-rules apply LLA-ARN-LHR and the YFLEX apply LHR-ARN-LLA and you got yourself a flexible return! Another effect is that you may use the inbound part only of your SK intra-European ticket!
Intercontinental flights are another story yet... There like the previous poster said you'll almost always face that the most restrictive rules apply for the whole part.

Wait, wait. This chart here - http://www.flysas.com/en/EuroBonus/E..._points/Chart/

says that B class is also Eco Extra. You are saying it is wrong ?

Also, on a related subject, is it actually possible to book a mixed fare (Eco+Eco extra ) ticket via website ?

*** from Economy to Economy Extra from September 5, 2007

Sure. Just try to book ARN-FRA on sas.se and you will see ;)

Ah, right. For intercont flights B is indeed regular Eco. It's just that i'm only flying intra-europe, that's why i only looked into first table.

As for booking - i've tried swedish site for CPH-SVO-CPH trip and didn't found a way to mix fares. I can only choose flights and then it shows me the price for that itinerary.

It used to be that way. B-class was transfered to Economy Extra also on intercontinental flights and E-class took it role in most negotiated fares.

YSB are all considered as EconomyExtra both on intercontinental and intra-europe.

I assume both flights were SK-operated, but was one of them maybe booked under a code-share? As mentioned in a later answer the database maintenance is rather poor at the moment giving a lot of strange things on point statements etc.

Not sure of the software the TA used, but I've had bookings shown as "S Premium Economy" in which case points were credited properly, but the service level on the BT flight was of the same zero level as always.

BT FA's comment was that they don't have an Economy Flex class. But what are SAS thinking when they charge the full Flex price and put you on a low-cost carrier such as BT?

Both flights were actually operated by other carriers, BT and LO respectively.

More on the same.

I just got e-tickets and itinerary for my flights tomorrow, and they show both the fare basis and booking class. The first is SPLOWY, but class is shown as S Premium Economy.

SPLOWY contains an obvious "Low Y", i e "Low Economy Flex" in SK parlance.

But does the "Low" mean that my point statement will show the usual "600 Basic Points, Economy Discounted" record? Why so if Y, S, B are indeed SK's E+ classes?

BTW the booking system is Amadeus and flights will be operated by LO and BT .

And the price paid was of the higher, E+ level.

not that obvious :) your fare should be understood as S+PL+OW+Y = booking class S, from Poland, One Way, Economy.