booking class when buying airline tkts on expedia
 

i saw that tkts fm hnl to bkk were $300 cheaper on expedia than on ua.com.

how is this possible? also, is there anyway i can tell the booking class of the tkt when booking via expedia? i would like to know if those tkts are upgradeable.

thanks.

Generally they are not upgradeable, nor do you usually get FF miles. But you'll have to call to find out. Have fun listening to the hold music. ;-)

After you choose the flights, the next page will show the itinerary of the whole trip. Down in Section 2 "Review the rules and restrictions", click on a link "rules and restrictions". It will show the fare code.

I tried some random dates in Nov/Dec HNL-BKK on UA for $1225. Fare bases show &quot;QLX3MTH&quot;. Looking up the info on ual.com, Q fare earns 100% EQM and 100% redeemable miles. Q fare is <b>NOT upgradeable</b> outside Zone 1, so not HNL-BKK.

Normally all tickets are upgradeable once purchased. They have to be ticketed which means paid for in full to be upgraded. You should also be able to get FF miles no matter where you book your ticket for whatever airline you are flying on. Expedia can sometimes make tickets cheaper by cutting their commissions which they are known to do , so they can do volume business whether or not they are making any money on it...sometimes the cost to upgrade a ticket will depend on what class of service it is booked in. Which with United &quot;T&quot; class is their lowest class of service in coach. There are many factors in finding airfare prices, which is whey you usually never see the same price wherever you look. Our agency for example , well we book inbound hawaii only, but we work with wholesale who have contracted airfare with the airlines...and many times the contracted fares are cheaper than the published fares you see on the net..published fares are what is open to the public to book on their own..contracted fares are only allowed to be sold by travel agents through wholesale. When booking be careful with the airline direct as UA charges if you don't book it online but call in a reservation, they will charge you a fee for that. Hope that helps!

I assume the OP is talking about upgrading with miles. The class that are eligible, and general rules are stated out here:

www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,1150,00.html

Sounds like the rules have changed on FF miles since I last used Expedia or Travelocity.

I assume opaque fares still do not give you FF miles?

Just go find out what fare class and check here to see if you get miles or not:

www.united.com/page/article/0,8566,3122,00.html

Cheap fare doesn't mean no miles necessarily. The fare that the OP find is like a consolidator fare, which Expedia gets wholeshare from UA.

Few years ago, I flew AC PVD-YYZ-YVR-HKG on AC on a similar &quot;Travelocity Exclusive&quot; fare for about $600, and earn 100% EQM and redeemable miles on Mileage Plus.

[BTW, I am not a proponent of Travelocity. I do use them occassionally when there's some really good deal. But if I can book through an airline directly, I'll always do that. I ran into a cancellation issue in Canada once when I bought from Travelocity. Took me phone calls and letters to get my money back.]

And different airlines have different rules. For example, I've used consolidator fares (via a Chinatown agent) on CO IAH-HKG, and I specifically request a higher fare class through the agent to get 100% EQM (they'll earn 100% redeemable anyways). No problem, except that fare is not upgradeable, even though it's not stated on continental.com about this restriction.

Okay, did some googling....

When it comes to FF miles for tickets bought on Expedia and Travelocity, there are some fare classes that do not receive miles. For example, see Travelocity's FAQ: http://preview.tinyurl.com/3ar8bf

Frequent flier miles for tickets purchased on Hotwire and Priceline are often not available. For example, see Priceline's FAQ: http://preview.tinyurl.com/37grz3

You're correct about Hotwire and Priceline.

Nobody says all fare class sold on Travelocity, Expedia, etc earn miles. All we're saying is that most do, and one needs to check the fare class and check with the airlines. That's it.

Hawaiichris did, so I was just making sure everyone was clear that there are some fare codes that don't. :-)

hey gang, thanks for your replies. sorry for the confusion.

i just wanted to be sure, that if i booked on expedia, that i could use my system wide grade. so, thanks to rk, i know how to ck the fare code to see if i can use the swu.

i've never used expedia, so it will/may be a learning experience for me.

again, thanks all. ken.

ps,

hawaiichris, we are having a gtg in sep. would love to have you join the group.

wow..I guess I am not privy to expedia and travelocity's rules on miles...I assumed our wholesale tickets always get miles that their tickets would also.

Thanks for the invite. I am actually one of two of our agents that doesn't live in hawaii. My husband is military so we moved away from home last year...do love my job though, I can do it from anywhere with how our company is set up and it's kind of nice selling hawaii to people, I get to talk about home everyday and I do miss it so much. Trying to get back this year..I want to see the new beachwalk project progress..they were still doing lots of constructing last sept. when I was there last. Hey but if I do get back in sept. I will definately take you up on that..thinking of coming for a visit this year...that's another thing I miss...I get so personal with my customers I used to meet them and hang out with them and I can't do that anymore.

Hey panda does internationl tickets BTW..sometimes they get some good fares..I know lots of locals use them for airfare and we do too for groups, they get really good fares!

chris - please don't take this as a personal affront, but in a couple of your posts I have seen some glaringly incorrect information. Do you have any training or experience outside the company with which you currently work?

Ken, you can upgrade a Q fare with a SWU, yes indeedy.

Oh, but you already know that.
http://www.united.com/page/article/0,1360,50027,00.html

I do have experience with airfares and airlines and I have worked with many. Obviously since I am a travel agent I don't use travelocity or expedia and wasn't aware that a lot of their fares don't earn miles , which our fares do. Most thing I kind of wanted to get across is that many people posting are saying things that are also not true like book directly with the airlines, hotel etc. because you don't get miles or you are first to get bumped which is completely not true. All our customers get FF miles on their fares and they are not booked directly with the airlines.

I think the biggest lesson really is when booking with an online agency like travelocity or expedia you need to read their rules and regs carefully.

I really haven't posted too much and besides the FF miles on travelocity and expedia I don't know where I was wrong and i did explain in my last post I must have been mistaken as I'm not privy to the online agencies fares, just assumed they would earn miles also on most fares besides sale fares. As for my other posts I have personally experienced those things with the airlines so I guess I am trained and experienced in those areas.