Earning RDM: Something new?
 

Is this something new or have I simply been asleep for too long? I was toying with an Air China premium economy fare (E class) and just checked wheretocredit.com on earning rates. Shocked to find that for the majority of *A FF programs, this earns less than 100% RDM - most are at the 90% level and some (like AI, ET & TP) are as low as 25%.

Has this always been the case? Is it a case of Air China being bloody minded (would not surprise me an iota) or is the doing of the *A FF involved?

Most airlines have some cheap booking classes that earn either nothing, or very low rates. This has been the case for well over a decade.

Of course I know that - but this is a PREMIUM ECONOMY fare. Show me another *A Premium Economy fare that earns nothing or low RDM.

Sounds like Lufthansa P fare revenue business class fare. Earns 0% in many programs. Only Miles and More itself and JV partners United and Air Canada credit 100%.

It might also be that CA was using "E" for regular economy but only recently switched it to PE and earnings have not been updated.

For a brief but glorious period P class on SQ earned 200% or more on A3 since it was a first class fare reused as PE.

ET has one of the most notorious fares for this since it comes up constantly in the Premium Deals Mileage Run forum. They have a revenue Business Class fare (P) that earns nothing at all in all but 2 *A programs (their own and CA's). Unfortunately some airlines think that giving a discount in a premium class and not awarding miles is attractive enough for people to buy it anyway. I'd personally rather they increase the fare slightly to cover the cost of miles and let it credit at 100% across *A.

And they are absolutely correct in 99% of cases. FT is in no way representative of the general flying community.

They call that a D fare.

You must be the first to be attracted by non mileage earnings fares. They could easily add $50-100 to the fare and make it 100% earning. Stupid really. Similar to LH P fare.

ET D fares are usually significantly higher than P fares in a lot of markets. It's not the very small cost of the mileage they would pay to the partner program.

Exactly. LH P fares aren't nearly as bad as ET P fares. The LH ones do credit in many of the more popular *A programs (A3 and TK being the major exceptions)

I'm not attracted by them, I jut don't whine about it. But the vast majority of all airline passengers only care about the lowest fare. With airlines making record profits, there's no reason for them to pander to the 1%.

Airlines are a business. They're not about to pass on costs with no markup if they want to stay in business. You can always just buy the miles yourself.