taranty

Just out of interest really, but does anybody know what rules are applied to determine which cabin a UK domestic connection is ticketed in when flying long haul in premium economy? I know a while back (before business existed on domestics) there was a "UK Business" designation which provided lounge access, but since business was introduced I've only ever seen the domestic sector in economy, regardless of the booking class for the long haul leg.

I've just booked flights for next week to Dallas from Newcastle, and noticed that the connections are both in business which seems to be new. I've done some dummy bookings to test this out and it broadly seems to be that a connection is in business if the long haul premium economy costs lots of money, but the connection is economy if the long haul element is not lots of money.

I'm therefore assuming that certain premium economy booking classes will now generate business connections, but just intrigued whether anybody knows where the line is drawn and when this was introduced?

BertieBadger

I suspect what you are seeing might be the effect of a promotion they are running (were running? It was supposed to end on Nov 30th) where you get a free upgrade into Club Europe on the connecting leg if you book into the W/E class of WTP, and under various other conditions.

https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb...us-club-europe

T&Cs from same:

There was some discussion here, but my Google-Fu is failing me for the moment. It may have been silently extended, or still be active in the booking engine.

KARFA

In terms of when WTP fares booked in to ET for domestic connections that happened when domestic flights changed to have a CE/ET cabins which was in April 2017.

Andriyko

It must have been a promotion. The usual rules for flights to the USA are - K class for T fares, B or Y for E fares, and Y class for W fares.

corporate-wage-slave

Unless perhaps the NCL-LHR end-on supplement on a higher cost LHR-DFW ticket was less than than the through ticketed fare? Or there was no through fare available for the flights in question.

nancypants

I have been pricing up SYD-LBA the last few weeks and the domestic always books into CE, not even an option to change it to economy (PE legs book into T fwiw)

BertieBadger

is there any possibility of an idiot's translation for those of us not fluent in ticketese?

I think this is saying that some fares allow it to be booked as a NCL-LHR in CE, and a LHR-DFW in WTP and the two fares/trips effectively joined together and that once that is done the end result is a NCL-LHR-DFW ticket that costs less than booking it as a single "through fare", and as such BA.com offers up the cheaper version with the CE ticket?

Is that right/vaguely right/wildly wrong?

BertieBadger

If so, that would rather hole my theory below the waterline....

I just did a little messing about on ITA for an EDI-LHR-JFK flight Dec 27 to Dec 30th, arbitrary dates but just so people can recreate.

When I select T class for WTP, the EDI-LHR books into K as expected.

When I select E class for WTP, then generally the EDI-LHR books into Y, while the LHR-EDI return books into R

When I select E class for WTP, but force the BA1459 for EDI-LHR being the only one that day with any R avail left, then it too books into R.

When I select W class for WTP then both EDI-LHR legs book into D (and the price becomes rather eye watering)

So from a very quick play, it does seem to be behaving according to the rules of the promotion, but it could well be something else......

taranty

I suspect there may have been an element of that going on, in that the travel agent found availability on the return connection to NCL which wasn't actually available on the BA website (which is good, because it gets me home a few hours earlier). I suspect overall though it's the promotion which is causing the general effect, because just playing with random bookings to JFK it was doing domestic business for some flights and economy for others, and ditto for other destinations, depending on fare bucket of the long haul sector.

I did have a very vague memory of reading something on here about domestic connections in business, I just couldn't remember the slightest detail hence asking the question. I'm pretty sure it was that promotion which must have been causing the vague ringing of bells.

BB - I'm in E for both legs of LHR-DFW and I for both the domestic connections. Not sure if this helps prove or disprove the theory! Edit - Looks entirely consistent with the promotion rules so more evidence in favour of the theory.

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, that's right, though I wouldn't regard myself as a ticketing expert, merely someone who consumes rather a lot of them.

End-on-end ticketing is where you have a fare component for NCL-LHR and a separate fare component for LHR-DFW, and the fare rules of both components allow them to be connected to provide a single NCL-LHR-DFW. There would still be two fare basis, but one PNR and from the outside the join is invisible. Through fares would be tickets which are constructed right from the start as NCL-DFW tickets, and may well have a rule in saying you have to go via LHR (for example). So from the outside it's identical to the end-on ticket but it could cost more, or less, and have different fare rules.

Sometimes end-on-end ticketing is inevitable, no airline is going to file, maintain and manage every single flight combination, but it does explain why sometimes it cheaper to go from NCL as opposed to EDI or GLA, even though all three airports are quite close together (by my rural standards).

BertieBadger

Many thanks for the explanation, that makes sense.