I am taking my family on safari in Africa at the end of the year. After years of saving Delta frequent flyer miles, I was able to get free business class tickets from Dallas through Amsterdam to Nairobi using Delta and KLM. Unfortunately, on the way back I was only able to snag tickets back from Amsterdam to Dallas. I can't get free seats from Nairobi to Amsterdam. KLM hasn't alloted any and appears unlikely to do so on the day I want to travel -- a popular day around the holidays.

Oh well, at least I'm saving a big chunk of change. I guess I will just have to pay for the flight from Nairobi to Amsterdam, right? Wrong! I can't buy it. KLM won't let me. I have tried since the day the flights opened and Delta, Northwest (KLM's US agent) and their websites and KLM's website all say that although the flight is operating on the day I need to fly, there is no inventory available. Finally today I was told by a Delta agent that due to Kenyan government regulations, a US agent can not sell a ticket that originates from Nairobi and terminates in Europe, with no connection to the US. When I tried to argue that the flight would have a direct connection to the US due to the rest of my itinerary, the agent said that the need to write two tickets -- one free and one revenue -- kicked it into the Kenyan regulation. (This actually makes some sense, because I tried on Northwest's website to book a round trip flight from Dallas to Nairobi and it told me the inventory was available and let me go all the way to giving my credit card to buy the ticket, where I stopped.) The Delta agent recommended that I find a travel agent in the Netherlands or Kenya to sell me the ticket.

I can't believe an airline will not sell me a ticket. Isn't that what they are in business for? Anyway, (1) has anyone heard of this and (2) do you have any suggestions -- other than finding a travel agent overseas?

Why not call NW/KLMs European or African offices? That would seem like the easiest way.

That said, I can only guess what's going on.

Kenya and specifically Nairobi is well known as a hotbed of selling stolen airline tickets. Perhaps the government is trying to curtail the fraud and came up with some safeguards and one of them is restricting ticket purchases.

Another reason may be that you are basically buying a one-way ticket so there may be something to that as well.

Just guesses as I have never heard of anything like this happening.

I'm sure others will chime in and maybe somebody will have the correct answer.

Good luck!

Good ideas. I also am going to try calling Kenya Airways here, since they actually codeshare the KLM flight I want to get on.

I have no problem finding fares and flights on klm.com once I chose country of departure as "Kenya".

I tried a date in June, but you won't like the prices though - it is $1,941 for one-way in coach.

If your browser directed you automatically to nwa.com, click on the KLM logo on the upper right and chose the country again and uncheck the "remember country" box so that you won't be going to the Kenya site next time.

Yes, I can do that also, but strangely enough it will not let me do it in business class -- just economy. Instead, it tries to put me on a Kenya Airways plane that KLM codeshares with, leaving in the morning, not the evening when I need to fly. My date of travel is Jan 5, 2008, and I want to get on KL0566, if you want to try it yourself.

Thanks for the help. This is perplexing. The reason I want to buy business class tickets is 1) that is the class I want to travel in ultimately, and 2) I need a fully refundable ticket at this juncture in case KLM ultimately does open up some award seats on that flight.

Probably means that flight is sold out in business.

Yes, you would think so, but I have been trying to get on that flight since 331 days out -- when it first was opened up. Never available.

Oh well, I have other options. Thanks everyone for their help. I was hoping someone may have heard about this screwy Kenyan regulation, but maybe there are other explanations.

sevendown....KL 566 on Jan 5 is coach only, no Business Class offered at all.And, it is just that one day for some reason.All the days around, Business Class is offered.Coach only configuration.....

Actually, they simply haven't loaded fares into the system. Airlines do not have to load all fares at 330 or whatever days ahead. They can elect to NOT sell tickets until later on.

rkkwan,
I thought that might have been the case too, but seats are available before and after that date.

BeachBoi,
Where did you find that it's a coach only config on 1/5?

Patty...I can tap into my TA's GDS system(I pay the fee!!)...It's just really weird because the morning departure, AMS NBO is showing 747 with both Business and Economy,J,C,Z,S,B,M, etc etc but the turnaround is only S and B...

BeachBoi,
I don't know which system you're using and how it displays, so this may be a stupid question, but are you sure that's not because J/C/Z=0 on the return so consequently they don't show up in the display at all?

I've taken that particular flight multiple times and the same aircraft is used on the return.

Patty
05JAN SAT NBO/Z‡3 AMS/-2
1KL 566 S9 B9 NBOAMS 1045P 530A‡1 747
Straight from the screen

It seems to me that the system is only showing <i>available</i> fare classes since economy fare classes other than S &amp; B are also missing, so I'd still interpret that as J being sold out rather than a coach only config. Anyone feel that this interpretation is flawed?

Patty's interpretation (that business class is sold out) seems sensible to me since economy is available on that flight and both classes are available on dates right around there, but then BeechBoi's interpretation (that the fares just have not been loaded yet) makes sense too, because I have been trying since day 1 to get on that flight, and it would be strange that it sold out on the first day it became available -- 330 days in advance.

It just seems to me that someone should be able to tell that either the flight is sold out (so I can STOP trying) or that the fares are not yet loade (so that I know to KEEP trying). In this age of computers it seems like that would be easily determinable. Oh well.

sevendown,
What you've been trying to do since day 1 is to get an award seat on that flight, not purchase one right?

Award seats are very different from seats available for sale and there's never a guarantee that any award inventory will ever be made available on any particular flight.

Or did you also check for seats for sale 330 days ago?

Very good point Patty. I probably tried checking for purchase seats some time after I realized I could not get the award seats on that segment, but still far enough in advance that I wouldn't think it would have sold out. But maybe so, since it is a popular day.

And I am getting closer and closer to thinking that that is the case, for the following reason (which really makes for a happy ending to all of this).

My return award ticket takes me AMS-CDG-IAH-DFW. So since I am getting overly nervous that flights on that day from Nairobi to Europe are selling out, I have just now bought four tickets on Kenya Airways from Nairobi to Paris (CDG), on the day I want to fly, leaving at the same time of night, and in business class. I therefore bypass AMS altogether, have a longer (and thus safer) layover in CDG, and get to fly Kenya Airways which I understand has a better business class than KLM. To top it all off, I booked in J class, which I understand is fully refundable. So if the KLM award seats ever become available from NBO-AMS (I'm not holding my breath), I can get a refund on the NBO-CDG tickets. Otherwise, when I decide it is futile I will tell Delta to reissue my return award ticket to cut out AMS and originate the flight back from CDG.

Now, the reason I say that I'm getting closer and closer to saying that KLM flight 566 is sold out, is that I apparently got 4 of the last 5 business class seats on the NBO-CDG flight on Kenya Airways on that date. So maybe it is the date I'm flying is just very popular.

By the way, I learned all this on SeatCounter.com, which before I learned of from Patty, I never knew existed. That is a great tool. Thanks a million Patty, as I will use it a lot in my travels.

I've been checking seatcounter.com for an upcoming flt also-would love to know how to read the info correctly? Did Patty explain this site to you in another link? Thanks

No, I was just trying to find a legend of the different fare classes, but haven't yet.

I'm glad you found something that worked! I've also heard that KQ is better than KL but haven't flown KQ in business personally.

As far as the fare classes, each airline uses a different set of letters to represent different fare classes. One way to find out what each letter represents for a specific airline is to try searching under that particular airline's forum on flyertalk.com. Usually this will have been discussed in a past thread.

In general, J or C are used to for full fare business and Y is used for full fare economy. After that, it's very airline specific.

I've made up the following string just for illustration purposes (it doesn't correspond to any particular airline):

J D Z Y B M H K T U X

In this case, J would be full fare business, D is discounted business and Z is heavily discounted business. Y is full fare economy and the other remaining letters represent various levels of discounted economy.

The number displayed after the letter represents the number of seats available for sale, but this number usually maxes out at 7 or 9, so for example, if you see 7's or 9's across that means there are <i>at least</i> 7 or 9 seats available for sale and there's great probability that there are actually more than 7 or 9.

The other thing is, you don't count and add all of the numbers together. For example using my made up string above, if you see J4 D2 that doesn't mean there are 6 business class seats for sale. It means there are a total of 4 business class seats for sale, 2 of which can be sold as discounted fares.

I think that covers the basics.

Seatcounter doesn't show hidden fare classes such as award or upgrade buckets. There are some paid subscriptions which allow you to search for some, but not all, airlines' hidden fare classes.

Often there are other free sources for online award seat searches for many, but not all, carriers across an alliance such as the NW Japan site for Skyteam or ANA for Star Alliance.