Euroboy

My apologizes if this is a trivial question, but I'm new to SQ... I'm flying SIN->DEL->SIN in January on SQ and just realized I'm booked is booked in 'P class' on the outbound leg and C on the return. My question is what is 'P class' on SQ? On UAL.COM it shows 'United Economy' (it is booked as part of a SEA->SFO->HKG trip), but my printed itinerary says First...

Any insights?

Guy Betsy

P is First Class. Before SQ joined the Star Alliance, it used booking classes P, J and Y only.

Since Star, it has realigned to F, C and M (amongst keeping Y and a host of other booking classes).

P I think is kept for discounted First for certain markets.

stargold

Probably a discounted or redepmtion class...

AFAIK SQ has aligned its booking classes to other Star airlines, so F would be the full-fare.

danielmhd

Indeed, as GuyBetsy noted, P is discounted First on SQ.

For future reference, note the list of Booking Classes in the Star Alliance forum.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=314724

sftrvlr

"P" is the designator for a "premium" first class product. It is normally used in markets where the carrier provides something over and above their regular first class offering. Some carriers used booking code "P" in the past to try to distinguish their product from that of other carriers. I believe there was an IATA directive several years ago that said that unless the product was in fact superior in some way to what the carrier normally offered in first class, that the code had to be realligned to "F." The only case I can think of where "P" is still used in in the domestic market in the USA on American Airlines and United Airlines for the transcon service between JFK and SFO or LAX. The first class booking code on those routes is "P" since the product is marketed as "international" first class service, rather than regular domestic first class service. Airlines still tend to fudge a little more on business class, where booking codes "J" and "C" are still seemingly interchangeable. I believe SQ uses the "J" designator to signify a restricted business class fare.

This is what most airlines use today:

R = supersonic (sadly no longer in use)
P = premium first class
F = first class
A = discounted first class
J = premium business class
C = business class
D = discounted business class

There are numerous other codes for premium cabins that are used for sale fares and promotions, as well as free tickets.

stargold

Actually, for most of Star Alliance, it goes like this:

F: Full fare First Class
A: Discounted First Class
P: Discounted First Class (more heavily discounted than A class, only used on some airlines)
O: Redemption First Class
C: Full fare Business Class
D: Discounted Business Class
J: Discounted Business Class (more heavily discounted than D class)
I: Redemption Business Class

They've gone through a booking class alignment recently and, whilst individual carriers make a few modifications for their own use, the overall scheme is as above. But a few airlines such as AC haven't aligned its booking classes to the harmonised Star scheme yet.

sftrvlr

The booking class alignment was to bring the codes into line with what most carriers use worldwide, and to try to standardize among the Star Alliance carriers. I say MOST, not ALL. P class is not the most heavily discounted first class designator. It is for a premium first class product. I can't think of a routing/fare where P class is used as a heavily discounted first class fare. On most carriers, J class is the full business class fare. Singapore Airlines is an exception, so again, it's most carriers, not all. Isn't SQ the only Star carrier that uses J for a discount business class fare? I can't think of another one off the top of my head.

stargold

Please refer to the thread in the Star forum.

Now..

AC: J full, C disc
NZ: F full, A disc, C full, D disc
NH: F full, A disc, C full, D disc, J disc
OZ: F full, A disc, P disc, C full, D disc, J disc
OS: C full, D disc
BD: C full, D disc, J disc
LH: F full, A disc, C full, D disc, Z disc
LO: J full, C disc, D disc
SK: C full, D disc, Z disc, J disc
SQ: F full, A disc, P disc, C full, D disc, J disc, Z disc
JK: C full, D disc, J disc
TG: F full, A disc, P disc, C full, D disc, J disc, Z disc
UA: F full, A disc, P - (not sure), C full, D disc, J disc
RG: F full, A disc, P disc, C full, D disc, J disc, Z disc

So, you can see that AC and LO are the only carriers to use J as denoting Full Fare Business, with the rest (if they use J at all) denoting discounted business class. Every single carrier except AC and LO uses C as denoting full-fare Business Class. Moreover, you will see that on OZ, SQ and TG, P is used as a deeper discount F class designator. None of the Star airlines (except perhaps UA, but only domestically) uses P as denoting Full Fare First.

PS. The only route/airline that I personally feel deserves a P designator is EK's A345 services.

RichardMEL

As usual SQ does things its own way. It's printed boarding pass stock use the P, J & Y for cabin designators, eg if you look at a SQ F (redish coloured) boarding pass, down the bottom it has printed (CLASS: P) as part of the BP, not printed by the printer in black. Same with J for Raffles and Y for Econ. They also use the same designators on their website seatmaps.

This is quite different to booking classes, as explained elsewhere. Other carriers, specially the euro carriers (eg: SK/LH/OS/BD) mark the BP in a similar vein "C" for Business, "M" for economy etc - irrelevant of the booking class, but for easily review by an agent or F/A to note the cabin at a glance.

Euroboy

Thank you all - seems like I will be flying SQ in F-class for the first time. Yeah!