Fare Classes - how do you know what you're buying?

[chrizzz14]

Im currently living in the UK - but have been doing regular jumps across the pond.
For these jumps ive been using points to get me J seats on BA and AA metal.

But the time has come where i need to start paying for flights before both my SC's and FFP's get too low.

So i go to the BA site and pick my fair across the pond in Y World traveler.
But how do i know if im buying a discount economy or full economy ticket?
I ask cause i want to know if ill earn more FFP's and SC's with BA or AA.
Booking with BA isnt like the Qantas site where you're given the fare options - as it seems it just has the one world traveler fare, one Club World, and one First fare! AA is much the same.

Am i missing something?

Im guessing Serfty might be able to help me out here!

 

[serfty]

When booking on BA.com, when in the "Choose Your Flights" page, if you click the flight numbers a pop up will appear containing details about the flight. Lo! At the bottom is an entry for "Selling Class".

BA Popup Sample
(Click for enlargement)​

Note you earn discount economy status credit in all economy booking classes other than B, H and Y. SC's earned are as per the QFF SC earning table.

Base QFF points are earned at either ¹/1 on miles for "Kangaroo route" flights and booking classes B, H & Y. For all other BA flight number, discount economy earns at ¼ point per mile with a minimum of 125 per segment.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
British Airways    GKLMNOQRSV (selected routes only)* Discount Economy* 0.25 -
(BA)               GKLMNOQRSV (selected routes only)^ Discount Economy^ 1    -
                   BHY                       Full Economy               1    -
                   TEW                       World Traveller Plus       1    10%
                   CDIRJ                     Business                   1    25%
                   AF                        First                      1    50%
                  ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
                   Status Credits are earned on all eligible booking classes.
                   * Travel in Discount Economy in the Eligible Booking Classes 
                   that is not between:
                   - Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Melbourne, Perth or Sydney and 
                   London or Frankfurt via Bangkok or Singapore,
                   - Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Melbourne, Perth or Sydney and 
                   Bangkok or Singapore, and
                   - London or Frankfurt and Bangkok or Singapore,
                   will earn a Base Rate of 0.25.
                   ^ Travel in Discount Economy in the Eligible Booking Classes 
                   between:
                   - Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Melbourne, Perth or Sydney and 
                   London or Frankfurt via Bangkok or Singapore,
                   - Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Melbourne, Perth or Sydney and 
                   Bangkok or Singapore, and
                   - London or Frankfurt and Bangkok or Singapore,
                   will earn a Base Rate of 1.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

 

[simongr]

You wont earn any FF points of SCs crediting to AA, flying BA TATL.

 

[Dave Noble]

Im currently living in the UK - but have been doing regular jumps across the pond.
For these jumps ive been using points to get me J seats on BA and AA metal.

It is v unlikely unless you are buying a v expensive ticket that it will be in Full Y. Only Y tickets earn full SCs. Everything else ( in economy ) will earn at discount rates. The Y rate is often more than a discounted business ticket

The Y fare on BA r/t LHR-ORD in Nov is GBP1150 plus tax on BA and GBP3852 on AA

( both T and E class Premium Economy fares on BA are cheaper than 1150 and there are business class fares on AA and BA which are less than GBP3852 )

The SCs will be the same whether crediting to AA or BA. Mileage earning will tend to be better on AA since most discount fares earn 50% mileage rather than the 25% mileage that BA earns

If you are living in UK, it might well be worth considering moving to the BA or AA schemes. The AA scheme will earn you full mileage on discount economy on AA . You will earn 1 mile per mile flown and , if travelling in economy, will probably be able to attain/maintain status more easily. One r/t from UK-US and you can attain Platinum AA status using the challenge

If really wanting to credit to QF, I would suggest looking for Premium Economy tickets since they earn as Full Economy for Status Credits plus earn Full Mileage with a 10% Class of service bonus

If crediting to BA the GBP459 plus tax H fare will earn full Tier Points

Dave

 

[chrizzz14]

Thanks Serfty and Dave,

So do you think it would be best to fly on AA metal and just credit points to AA Advantage? If i was to do this can i still use my qantas club membership to enter the clubs?

Also i have an off topic question - earlier this year i flew a JFK- YYZ return segment booked via qantas - of which i received no status or ffp's. Qantas told me it was because the segment was not an eligible flight ( even tho booked via qantas) does this make sense?

 

[notzac]

Also i have an off topic question - earlier this year i flew a JFK- YYZ return segment booked via qantas - of which i received no status or ffp's. Qantas told me it was because the segment was not an eligible flight ( even tho booked via qantas) does this make sense?

Makes perfect sense, assuming you were booked on an AA flight number. You were probably booked in to either O or Q class on AA, which credits nothing to Qantas. I'd agree that booking on the QF website should actually earn something towards QF, but there you go.

 

[chrizzz14]

ive been going over both BA and AA programs.... they suck compared to our qantas

 

[NM]

ive been going over both BA and AA programs.... they suck compared to our qantas

I have found the opposite for my travel patterns and desired outcomes. For me, AA is well ahead of QF. And I live in Australia and fly way more Qantas flights than AA flights.

 

[chrizzz14]

I have found the opposite for my travel patterns and desired outcomes. For me, AA is well ahead of QF. And I live in Australia and fly way more Qantas flights than AA flights.

But from what i can tell AA doesnt have such a thing as Status points - its all based on miles required to gain higher tiers... unless im misreading something!

I got to Gold in one year with qantas flying nothing but Y flights! Of which supplied enough ffp's to get me a bucket load of J flights ( LHR - JFK/LAX)

With aa - you need 25,000 miles to get to the first Tier level. If only flying at discount rates efectively you need to fly 50,000 miles to get to the first tier!

or am i just confused

 

[Dave Noble]

But from what i can tell AA doesnt have such a thing as Status points - its all based on miles required to gain higher tiers... unless im misreading something!

fly 25,000 miles a year ( or 30 sectors) in discount economy will get you Gold Status
fly 50,000 miles in a year ( or 60 sectors ) you get Platinum status

Flying on AA, you will get 100% miles on all AA flights; for any BA flights you take you will, like QF, get 25% mileage. For a discount economy traveller it tends to be a lot easier to get status

e.g. Fly LHR-ORD-LHR . This is around 3900 miles. Fly on AA and credit to AA and you will earn 3900 miles , which is 15% of the requirement for Gold. Credit to QF and you would get 25 points which is 8.3% of the requirement for renewing Silver ( 7.1% of requirement to attain silver ) . In economy travel you are likely to hit AA Platinum in around same time as getting QF Silver

As far as miles earned goes, the redemption rates tend to be a lot better on AA than on QF

45,000 points is enough for a business class one way flight from UK-anywhere in USA ; using QF miles you would need 60,000 to 84,000 miles ( depending on the distance ) *plus* any domestic 2 class legs on AA would be in economy class ( unless u use 1st class redemption rates )

Dave

Dave

 

[chrizzz14]

i am starting to agree wit you dave, although like i said aadvantage does only credit you if 0.5% per mile if you fly " the heavily discounted flight" and there is a rather big difference between the heavily discounted and plane old discounted!
So do get to gold youd have to pay extra on each flight to get the full points!

I guess its the price to pay if you want to obtain status.
I just like how qantas has a 1000pt guarentee!
And qantas's point earn table doesnt vary so much.

 

[Dave Noble]

i am starting to agree wit you dave, although like i said aadvantage does only credit you if 0.5% per mile if you fly " the heavily discounted flight" and there is a rather big difference between the heavily discounted and plane old discounted!
So do get to gold youd have to pay extra on each flight to get the full points!
.

No no. you are misunderstanding it

When you fly there are 2 sets of points that you will accumulate

You will earn qualifying Miles ( of which you earn 1 mile per mile flown )
You will earn qualifying Points ( of which you will earn 0.5 point per mile flown on some cheapier fares or 1.0 point per mile flown in other discount fares or 1.5 point per mile flown in Full Economy, Business or 1st )

To get gold status you need to attain either 25000 qualifying miles OR 25000 qualifying points OR fly 30 sectors
To get platinum status you need to attain either 50000 qualifying miles OR 50000 qualifying points OR fly 60 sectors

It is quite common for the cheapest fares ex-UK to be in W class which is full qpoint earning

The only time where it will matter to you on whether it is full or discount point earning is if you decide to take the Platinum Challenge. This fast track to platinum requires that you earn 10,000 Qpoints in 3 months. If you book a fare earning 1 qpt per mile flown it is not hard to do this in a single trip to USA. Once you have status then you dont need to worry about points only miles when it comes to requalifying

Qantas's 1000 mile guarantee only applies to Qantas flights

Flying AA, once you have status will earn you a min of 625 miles a s a gold member and 1000 miles as a platinum member; just do the challenge, get status on 1st trip and you have the min earnings

if you are doing enough travel to maintain Platinum status, then you will earn more spending miles with AA than QF since you will earn 100% bonus rather than 50% than QF gold gives

If your regular trips are at least 5 per year, then you should be able to maintain platinum and earn 100,000 spending miles a year. ( get an AA credit card and u can boost it further ). Should yo manage to reach a lifetime count of 1,000,000 miles from any source ( including things like credit cards ) then you will get lifetime gold


If you do decide to keep crediting to Qantas be aware

Only booking classes GLMNSV and BHKY are eligable to earn miles to QF when travelling AA. That which is often the cheapest class (W) is ineligable to earn miles

GLMNSV will earn 50% miles to QF whilst all classes earn 100% to AA

Your earnings will definitely be higher to AA than to QF and redemptions cheaper

Fly on BA and credit to QF and you would be even worse off with 25% credit

The best earning coupled with best redemption for Transatalantic travel with discount economy travel has to be AA

The only fares that you may find ineligable to earn miles are some consolidator fares; as long as you buy a normal fare ( just book on aa.com ) and you will be fine for earning; just keep away from consolidators like expedia and netflights

Dave

 

[chrizzz14]

ahhh your a legend dave thanks heaps

AA it is then! hmmm ive never flown AA Y class internationally .... shall be interesting!

 

[NM]

Also note that I said "for my travel patterns" AA works out better. This year, nearly all my flights have been international economy booked in B fare class. For QF, this is discounted economy and a typical BNE-HKG would earn 30 Status Credits or 10% of Silver renewal, 5% of Gold renewal, or 2.5% of Platinum renewal.

If crediting the same flight to AA, I earn 6450 Elite Qualifying Points, which is 25% of AA Gold status, 13% of AA Platinum status, or 6.45% of AA Executive Platinum status.

Looking at it another way, with Qantas I would need 10 such flight for Silver, 20 for Gold or 40 for Platinum. With AA, I would need 4 such flights for Gold, 8 such flights for Platinum or 16 flights for Executive Platinum.

While this may be an extreme example, it is representative of my travels this year (4 trips to Hong Kong so far and more to come). So with Qantas I would not have made Silver requirement, while on AA I have already passed Platinum requirement.

 

[djfuzz]

Interesting. Have to say that my current feelings / flying patterns are moving away from this.

Flying QF domestically quite regularly now, and not going for flex tickets. Have given up trying to book O class fares which can be significantly more expensive than other Red e-Deals, and even then only earn 25% EQPs and 50% RDMs / EQMs. For flights with greater than 1000 BIS miles, QFF with status bonuses appears to suddenly become better than AA RDMs.

While the 1000 mile MMG for Plats is obviously handy, and the burning rate for longhaul Europe/NA flights significantly better, it feels like QFF is simply a better fit for me as we won't be redeeming awards for those two destinations in the foreseeable future.

As far as status goes, I would have gotten to WP+PG on QFF, but instead am stuck in the purgatory between PLT and EXP, and won't be making the latter despite significant BIS miles on the board - would have easily cleared it under the old 500 EQP minimum rule, but shaving off half of those points and not being able to take advantage of the DBEQM promos has pretty much ruled that out. Would have qualified using both EQM and EQP had the membership year and qualifying year both lined up in Feb (or even a week or two into Jan).

The transition back across is going to be messy though - have to wait until Mrs Djf qualifies for PG (so that I can at least get the 50 per cent bonus) then start crediting in the new membership year to QFF. Requalifying for SG shouldn't be difficult, but will have to get to the full 1400 SCs to get to WP.

I certainly don't mind having accrued the RDMs on AA, which will be very useful at some point - and had we been flying AA more often rather than QF, it would have been perfect. I'm just not sure I would have made the call to credit to AA if I had fully realised the practicalities of earning mileage / status on AA locally.