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While I'm certain that there's no way to accomplish this, I thought I'd ask anyway.
When purchasing a Fly Confirmed for Less ticket, if I select Main Cabin, I get the lowest Fare Class available for the flight(s), usually X or V. If I select First or Business Cabin, I get the highest Fare Class (F or J), even though lower Fare Classes, such as G, A, P, I or Z are available for revenue ticket purchase for the flight(s). Is there any way to get these "Discounted First/Business classes?
I have tried that and wonder about the same thing - but apparently it is a NO-CAN-DO !
The system was supposed to work with the lowest published fare - but butting heads with the system it only shows one fare !
Suggest scrap the employee discount and go directly to Delta.com and book the lowest fare possible and with the cavet of having
to pay the check baggage fees you will with a greater percentage of the time come out way ahead of the game. Have the America Express
Card tied in with Delta use it and the bag fees should be waived on at least the first bag and the miles that go with the deal.
The Fly Confirmed for Less ticket does not award miles which the other discount program does.
The Fly Confirmed for Less program does give a slightly better discount but when compared to the Delta.com site fares WHY BOTHER !
The ONLY way I would consider using the employee discounted fares would be IF there was a menu of the published fares to be selected
and it has to be a significant savings fare reduction which it is not at the present !
Another undesirable feature about the Fly for Less Programs is you buy a coach ticket and can not use any of your employee benefits to
UPGRADE to the front cabin if seats are available ! A very personal sour note !
Thanks for the quick reply. I didn't think that there was a way to accomplish it.
BTW, I'm using the "Fly Confirmed for Less" which does give Sky Miles and is eligible for domestic Medallion Upgrades. The "Fly Confirmed for Even Less" which gives the larger discount does not give Sky Miles and is not upgrade eligible.
We're parents, not employees, so our situation is different than an employee's. We're fortunate that we both have AMEX Delta Reserve Cards as well as high Medallion Status.
We never check baggage (maybe once in the last 4 years) and if we did we'd get a minimum of 2 free bags (3 if we're upgraded). We only fly NRSA for international. All of our non-business domestic travel is revenue and the savings for our non-business travel using Fly Confirmed For Less is meaningful.
It'd be great if we could book I or Z fares for our International travel when it's schedule dependent. We have an 8+ hour personal TATL trip in coach later this week because the Z fare was almost 4X the Fly Confirmed for Less and we can't take a chance on NRSA loads in July. :D
Thank you for clarifying the difference between the two discounts FCfL and the FCf"E"L - I misread but knew of the differences.
I don't have Medallion status but do have the Ax Reserve Card and am thinking of converting to the Ax Platinum for better off line enhancements .
One thing that you no doubt have noticed is that if you know your travel plans far enough in advance often First/Business class fares can
be had for coach. The last minute walk-up fares excluded !
We have both the Reserve (mine Business, her's Personal) and the regular Platinum.. Which one is better depends on your own needs. If you have Medallion Status, the additional qualifying miles can be meaningful but you have to spend a lot on the card to get them. You also get Redeemable miles (RDM's) and in the "New World" of earnings those can pay for the Reserve Card. The card is $450 and, if you use the Sky Clubs enough, that pays for the card. If you spend $60K with the card you get 1 RDM per $ and another 30K RDM's for hitting the 2 thresholds for a total of 90K RDM's. An RDM is worth a minimum of $.01 if you use it for Pay With Miles so you get $900 worth of RDM's to spend on tickets and Sky Club Admittance as well as a free bag. You also get 30,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQM's) and bypass the Medallion Qualifying Dollar (MQD) requirement with over a $25K spend. That means that you get Silver Medallion without a BIS (butt in seat mile) and can make Gold Medallion (GM) if you fly 20K miles. Either of those gives you free Comfort+ at the appropriate window and a chance at upgrades on domestic flights. Earlier boarding for overhead storage, Sky Prioirity lanes for GM and above and more. IMO, if you fly the miles to make GM and can afford to spend $60K on the card, it's a no brainer. There's a Forum on FlyerTalk - The world's most popular frequent flyer community on Manufactured Spend which can give you ideas on how to get to the amount you need. There's also the Annual Companion ticket. Lastly, it's nice to build up a bank of RDM's so that if you get stuck somewhere and can't wait it out, you have a PLAN B with a one-way award ticket. That happened to us in early January with the AMS backlog due to east coast weather.
The regular Platinum also gives you the Sky Club, $200 in airline fee reimbursements and many other unique benefits. Also Companion tickets on INT'L. If you can use the benefits, the value more than offsets the cost of the card.
Yes, you're corect that one can often purchase inexpensive Business fares. Those are the ones I'd love to be able to get with FCFL. You can also explore "upscale" fares on AF, KL and AZ, purchased on their ticket stock.
Another source of information if one is buying tickets, Zed's or BP's is to look at the FlyerTalk - The world's most popular frequent flyer community Mileage and Points Forum. If you happen to be going someplace where someone has discovered an inexpensive routing, you can take advantage of it.
A myriad of ways to get there (and hopefully back) and all sorts of ways to control costs. Unfortunately, FCFL won't help with the First / Business discount fares.
Thanks again for your responses and for having this active Forum.
RM--I totally disagree regarding using employee bennies to upgrade rev tkt. Why should we get PSUP? I would have a real issue w/anyone who instituted emp upgrade that way. We have a choice of one or the other, unless we use miles to upgrade as a form of payment for a mystery code FCFL tkt. I do think we should be able to read the booking code prior to purchasing. I don't think we're the only folks who have a beef with that! But once we become revenue pax, we aren't entitled to employee perks.Quote:
Originally Posted by R.M.Anderson
The One Great Team passes have dragged on for extended years. Sure isn't fun to get knocked off a flt by OGT users 3 yrs after the original ending date. We used ours during the first date; then they were extended and extended and extended. Couldn't rely on an expiration. I think they finally end this year. (side note--does anyone know? I'd like to know since they seem to come out of the woodwork last minute--ad infinitum...!)
Love the Amex Plat card, too. Never had any use for the companion tkt--better bang/$ on nonrev w/DL and OALs are overpriced (must purchase from Amex travel) I use the Priv Pass lounges overseas when possible, too. We each have a card so it was worth buying one for me on same acct. The $200 allowance can actually be used to pay $50 pass fee (which I forgot once) I usually use my sister's DL card to pay for it, since her family uses all the buddy passes. We typically use it for food/bev in flight for domestic. We can also use it to pay for a guest in SkyClub. Pretty cool card, even tho it's a bit pricey. We get it for Global entry every 5 yrs, too. It's our Christmas gift each year. The gift that keeps on giving.
Fly Confirmed for Less is pretty much useless for mileage upgrades. INT'L requires an underlying Y,B or M Fare and Domestic required a K or higher. Since you can't specify fare class when purchasing FCFL, you'd have to spend time finding flight(s) where that's the lowest fare class being sold. Then there's the issue of upgrade inventory, If that's not available at purchase, it probably won't happen and you've way overspent for a regular main cabin ticket, not even C+. If you have Medallion Status you are eligible for Medalllion UG's.
I've never done it with a FCFL ticket but you can call and get a quote in $ and miles to upgrade to the appropriate fare class. Most of the time, the change fee will be waived. It won't be cheap though.
I do have another question. Tickets purchased in the US are subject to the "24 Hour" rule. You can cancel the ticket for a full refund within that time frame (Delta even extends it to midnight of the next day). Does that also apply to FCFL and/or FCFEl tickets? I'll probably ask our son to contact the pass bureau about that.
Every time I ask him to list us or buy FCFL, I come up with more questions. :confused:
mrs767er, I agree 1000%, the AMEX Card(s) can be great if you use the benefits.