Pricing and booking mixed-class fares, with economy & premium economy combined?
So I find myself flying mixed-class fares pretty often these days, with the long legs in Premium Economy and the short hauls in plain old Economy. Some sample trips flown or planned:
- SYD-AKL-SFO (NZ), with SYD-AKL in Economy and AKL-SFO in Prem Econ
- SYD-SFO-LAS (UA), with SYD-SFO in Economy Plus and SFO-LAS in Economy
- ZRH-DXB-SYD (EK/QF), with ZRH-DXB in EK Economy and DXB-SYD in QF Prem Eco
Problem is, none of the booking engines I know handle this. For example, if I select "Premium Economy" in my usual favorite, ITA Matrix, it interprets this as "must fly in prem eco or better" and thus doesn't find #1 at all, instead offering $9,000 fares via Hong Kong or something (because there's no Prem Eco for SYD-AKL), and for #2 it quotes me SFO-LAS in First. None of the airline sites listed above seem to cater to this either, except -- oddly enough -- for award redemptions. I usually end up getting quotes for plain old economy and asking actual human travel agents how much an upgrade would cost, but this is slow and inconvenient for everybody involved.
So is there a booking engine that lets me specify "fly in premium economy if you can, but economy if not"?
Best Answer
The closest I have seen to what you are looking for is through Kayak. Based on certain criteria that it determines, tickets with multiple legs can have different booking classes.
For instance, the below Delta flight YOW-LHR-YOW has a total of 4 legs each of which can be booked in either Economy or Business.
The Details tab
You then move to the Fares tab to see the price
It doesn't work with all flights - presumably because not all airlines allow it. On British Airways and Turkish Airlines flights, I've seen it allow choices of Economy, Prem Economy and Business.
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What is the difference in price between economy and premium economy?
The price difference between premium economy and economy depends on the airline and route that you're flying. Generally speaking, you're looking at a minimum of a 30% price increase, but you may also pay double the price of an economy ticket.Can you mix economy and business class?
Even if you select the outbound flight in Economy Class and then the inbound flight in first class, the outbound flight will then be displayed as a business class flight in the summary. Economy class can only be combined up to business class and only from economy saver. The economy light fare cannot be combined.What does premium economy Mixed cabin mean?
You usually refer to an award ticket with a mixed cabin if it includes Economy and Business/First Class on the same ticket \u2013 however tickets that include only First and Business Class are also considered mixed cabin award tickets.What is the difference between economy and premium economy on international flights?
Economy plus is a slightly upgraded economy experience, while premium economy is its own cabin with elevated service on international flights. As airlines love to throw different names on their seats, be sure to check which class you're actually getting before booking.How Airlines Price Flights
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Answer 2
The ability to book by fare class is one of the woefully missing aspects on online booking. In the early days of booking on the internet, some airlines offered the ability to book each leg by fare class, but that level of complexity was not utilized by travelers (except highly experienced flyers) and they all dropped it in favor of booking algorithms that satisfied the majority of travelers.
While perhaps the option could be added back in someday, I think the number of folks who have enough knowledge to benefit from it or that would be willing to spend the time to do it, is but a small fraction of the traveling public. Hence not really a good ROI.
Travel agents still have the ability to look at each leg of a trip and see how many seats are available in each fare bucket, and put together the perfect combo.
With each iteration, the booking algorithms get a bit better (most of the time ;-), but they will always be geared to satisfy the majority of travelers and hence never quite perfect for everyone.
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