Maze of Classes
 

I've seen some references in various threads to being able to shop for specific airline "letter" (eg M,DL, etc) cabin classes. Is there a site or table available that shows the class codes by airline? How does one go about comparison shopping for class fares at various airlines?


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Cheers,
Greg

Star Alliance airlines are detailed here

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum82/HTML/001451.html

You may find references to an airline in their particular forum

We may be looking at two different sets of "classes" here.

1. Cabin class - most mainline airplanes have two or three classes; coach, [business], and first. The normal designator for coach class is Y. Business class is commonly C or J. First class is almost universally F.

Besides this, there are subclasses, like Z class may be a First Class seat on an award ticket and things like that.

2. The second class type is fare class. This is somewhat loosely coupled to the cabin class, in that a full-fare Y tickets will generally have a fare class of "Y"; similar with business and first.

However, there are a myriad of other ticket class available, usually reflecting different fares, restrictions, etc., and usually all resulting in a seat in coach.

Thus, we find USAir has classes M,H,K,V, and probably a bunch of others. They are often (but not always) different prices and with different restrictions (Saturday night stay, 7 or 21 day advance purchase, upgradeable or not, etc.). It's this type of class profusion which leads to a lot of customer confusion.

And if I'm not mistaken you're probably a bit confused at this point, too. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

They are very complex. This thread below SOLELY looks at United fare classes ... A-Z and it is 3 pages long already. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

All major airlines have a complex list just as long. You have not told us WHICH airline you are looking at.

<A HREF="http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/014576.html" TARGET=_blank> Click for a detailed compilation - listing and outlining all known UA revenue/award/upgrade booking codes "A - Z" (and details and validity of many UA Upgrade Certificates) and how to access and view them on www.ual.com </A>

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~ Glen ~ sipping bubbly from a UA 747-400 exit row 15 near you SOON!

This has been very helpful. Thank you. I'm supposing that the other airlines have equally complex code structures but less friendly web sites than UA. Since I mostly fly UA, it has been an eye-opener and will really help me with my web site transactions.

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Cheers,
Greg