That sounds vaguely familiar, and might be the explanation. I guess what still would be in want of explanation is why the website is telling me there are no flights available on any date I search for.

Until very recently you couldn't get the ex-europe latitude pricing in the app, but that changed within the last month or two. Still, even before that I was able to change a flight in the app and get the correct pricing, as long as I originally bought it on the website. So the app somehow had the ability to preserve the better pricing, just not secure it in the first place.

I understand that the Air Canada website is flakey and sometimes when it displays no upgrade available or upgrade available, you really don't know until you book, pay and apply the upgrade.

BUT......Anyone else notice upgrade space different when booking a Latitude fare ex-Europe VS Canada-Europe (same date same flight)

Searching with various dates, and when selecting E-upgrade filter the flight has no upgrade space and says "You will be waitlisted", but if you search the other way around (same date, same flight but start the booking in Canada first instead of Europe) that same flight has "seats available for upgrade" Just wondering if there is some sort of glitch here and what your experiences has been booking and upgrading when booking a ex-EU fare.

I think I was able to pick the flights, and either before or after seat selection (I can't quite recall which now) the website would return an error so I couldn't actually complete the change.

I spoke to half a dozen agents, and they didn't all price the change the same, but most of them did. Unfortunately I ran out of time to make the change I needed and could get the agent to repeat the lower pricing I got the one time.

The previous set of these fares were dual-inventory fares that booked into B but required inventory in a lower booking class as well. BLTFFKLT likely required K and BLTFFTLT likely required T. The new versions of these fares are single inventory booking directly into the lower RBD (i.e. K and T directly). All of these fares are fare-by-rule based on another lower fare with an upcharge applied. When changing these after departure, it will use fares in effect at time of ticketing, but since they are dual inventory fares, you need the same lower fare class available to keep the same fare (notwithstanding other things such as day of week etc). So an ad-col may be because you need to move to a higher fare.

So, when did they change?

Looking at tickets bought in January, I see a fare BLTFFKLT, both ways.

The dual inventory fares have always been there since these �cheap� fares existed. If you got the same fare basis both ways then that meant the same lower RBD was available at that time.

The change where it�s still Latitude but books into K directly is more recent .. no more than a couple of months or so.

Thanks. The search engine is giving me zero flights on any dates I search, which suggests at least the website/app issue is not a matter of K or T availability.

Re the ad-col, I wonder if what's happening is that when I try to change the flight through an agent, somehow the existing fare is being treated for pricing as if it's a T, rather than a B that depends on T inventory. The agent sees B on her end, but I get charged the difference between B and T not because there is no T availability (there is in expert flyer), but because the system treats it as a T fare and applies the upcharge. Is this a possibility?

Ex-Europe. J Low is cheaper than Y basic. At least I can argue that Latitude is flexible so I would pay more $ and eUps over J Low, but Y Basic?

These fares are �private� fares restricted to specific booking offices (I.e. the website) and the call centre may not be able to see these fares unless they are able to �switch into� the correct booking office.

Also searching on expert flyer for a partially flown booking isn�t fully helpful as the inventory available to switch into on your return can still be dependent on the flown journey and therefore may actually not be available.

Thanks, this is helpful. Given that the website is returning 'no flights available' for any dates I search, and I have to go through an agent, am I right that I should be asking them if they are able to "switch into the website booking office" (is that the standard terminology, do you know)? My guess is a front-line agent will have no idea what I'm talking about but possibly if I say the right things they will bump me to someone else. I know when I had a similar problem before the (experienced) agent couldn't do it directly, she had to call some other AC office (but I can't remember the name).

Good to know re expert flyer. I suspect something is broken with the ticket because if the explanation is that there is no availability in my (dual) fare class, wouldn't the website return flights but price them higher, corresponding to a move from T to B? It also seems odd that I bought this just last month but can find no flights on any dates I search between today and next November.

Also, I had confirmed eupgrades on this flight, and the agent had no problem removing them, which requires space to be available in the original booking class, which suggests that on at least that flight the underlying fare class was available. That said, I'm not sure whether removing an upgrade on a dual class fare requires availability in both fare classes. The agent just mentioned needing availability in B, but I don't know if the process is that she looks to see whether there is B available and does it manually, or if a computer on her end does it (which would make it more likely it checks both B and T).

So why are Latitude fares not upgradeable? Same flight? If you select Premium Flex, UPGRADE space available, If you select LATITUDE there is NO UPGRADE
See the photos below



Search for a flight EX EU


Latitude NO UPGRADE available (waitlist)


Premium Economy - FLEX - Why is upgrade available???

It�s because it won�t be upgrading into R space but instead hidden space the algorithm for which takes into account the price of the ticket. With the higher fare that you would be paying for PY flex vs lattitude here revenue management thinks it�s worthwhile for them to give you an instant upgrade if you buy PY flex but not if you only buy latitude. If you were to find R space through expert flyer both would be upgradable when there isn�t R space they both could be, neither could be or somewhere in between it�s all up to the black box that is revenue management.

@neilk99 Thanks for that thorough explanation.

I'm not sure the front-line agents can switch and access these web-only fares. They will likely need to get rates involved. You would need to say this is a web-only fare and website is giving an error basically. Re: eUpgrade removal, the dual inventory check doesn't apply. You were originally booked in B and that's all that needed to be available for them to switch. The dual inventory check is for pricing.

Not a data point for the web-only fares, but regular reservation agents were able to switch office id from CA to US so that I can grab inventory that is only available to US PoS. After that they were also able to switch back to CA office id to price the ticket in CAD.