Confused at DJs seat classes

[Deleted member 29185]

Why are you confused? While the table does include a Premium Economy column, there is the following stated under the table: Premium Economy on, for example, V Australia use the Premium Economy column.

Ah thanks.....I missed the small print and foolishly thought PE would earn PE SCs.........silly me

Now I'll have to recheck my bookings to see how that will change my status run to Gold.......bloody annoying so far, as fast as I'm earning, more are dropping off the end!

 

[Noob]

Won't happen.

I am sure if they encountered routes where the demand for J class was consistently greater than their capacity of 8 guests they would reconfigure the required number of aircraft with the required additional number of J seats. As an example, the Gold Coast which is a growing business/tourist area being only serviced by one premium airline may eventually require more J capacity.

 

[connieguy]

Ah thanks.....I missed the small print and foolishly thought PE would earn PE SCs.........silly me

Now I'll have to recheck my bookings to see how that will change my status run to Gold.......bloody annoying so far, as fast as I'm earning, more are dropping off the end!

When I last did the numbers, DJ PE generally had the lowest A$ / SC earn rate due to earning SCs at the J / Business rate.

Negative part of this is, for the new DJ true J flights, you pay twice the $ for the same SCs as a PE seat would cost. Of course this will change. If I flew that DJ J service and paid twice the PE price and received no more SCs for my 2x spend than someone who paid the PE price, I would be calling DJ for another hit of SCs.

 

[markis10]

When I last did the numbers, DJ PE generally had the lowest A$ / SC earn rate due to earning SCs at the J / Business rate.

Negative part of this is, for the new DJ true J flights, you pay twice the $ for the same SCs as a PE seat would cost. Of course this will change. If I flew that DJ J service and paid twice the PE price and received no more SCs for my 2x spend than someone who paid the PE price, I would be calling DJ for another hit of SCs.

On the flip side, the redemption rates are the same for new J as for PE, which are very good value, try getting a J flight with QF for tomorrow for 6900 points + $167, in fact try to get any award flight under 24 hours let alone one with this value:

 

[Deleted member 29185]

That does seem attractive. Last time I flew to Perth (frm BNE though), I thought I was on a great deal at about $199 in Y.

$167.75 + points we get gratis for J seems too good to be true!

 

[markis10]

I am just lamenting the lack of points in my Velocity account to take advantage of the redemptions available while they last, certainly no issues with availability at present except for connection flights!

 

[Jack Melon]

I am sure if they encountered routes where the demand for J class was consistently greater than their capacity of 8 guests they would reconfigure the required number of aircraft with the required additional number of J seats. As an example, the Gold Coast which is a growing business/tourist area being only serviced by one premium airline may eventually require more J capacity.

Then why wouldnt they just make row 3 business class when the made it, and now having to go to the trouble to make row 3 business class when they just unvealed business class and put a divider in. I think it will either be a premium economy or premium row or an extra charge seat or upgrade seat.

 

[Justchecking]

Then why wouldnt they just make row 3 business class when the made it, and now having to go to the trouble to make row 3 business class when they just unvealed business class and put a divider in. I think it will either be a premium economy or premium row or an extra charge seat or upgrade seat.

Caution and flexibility could be one answer. In order to make business class exclusive and nice enough to pay for they have to stop putting Y fare paying pax in it....ie, fly around with empty seats unless they sell the J class ticket. In the beginning they are not expecting to sell all 8 seats (new product and uptake rates etc) so why make J class 12 seats at this stage when it will just fly empty for a while? Better to keep the option of 12 at some future point but at the same time maximize their Y cabin usage and keep status pax happy without having to op-up them into J on full flights. Maybe in 2-3 years time or for extra busy routes they will have a need for 12 J class, but why fly around with empty seats in the meantime. One of the big things holding PE as a domestic product back was it's lack of exclusivity and filling up PE seats with Y pax. Why pay for it when you could get it free? it lacked value proposition. The cabin divider is a fairly simple plastic mould that's bolted to the seat track, not an issue or much of an expense at all to simply slide it rearwards and install new seats if operationally justified.

 

[oz_mark]

As an example, the Gold Coast which is a growing business/tourist area being only serviced by one premium airline may eventually require more J capacity.

If there really was such a demand for J class seating, that people were willing to pay for, to the the Gold Coast, I am sure the red roo would be flying there.

 

[Justchecking]

If there really was such a demand for J class seating, that people were willing to pay for, to the the Gold Coast, I am sure the red roo would be flying there.

Maybe,although it wouldn't be the first time that the red roo has missed a market or rather shunted it to the orange star. I'm not sure when QF stopped flyng there, but the market may have changed since. Obviously DJ thinks there is a big enough corporate market there to warrant a lounge. The gold coast has in recent years become a centre for corporate commuters who find the lifestyle in the hinterland appealing enough to base their family there. although saying all that I doubt you'll see 12 J seats on Goldie runs anytime soon.

 

[oz_mark]

Maybe,although it wouldn't be the first time that the red roo has missed a market or rather shunted it to the orange star. I'm not sure when QF stopped flyng there, but the market may have changed since. Obviously DJ thinks there is a big enough corporate market there to warrant a lounge. The gold coast has in recent years become a centre for corporate commuters who find the lifestyle in the hinterland appealing enough to base their family there. although saying all that I doubt you'll see 12 J seats on Goldie runs anytime soon.

I'm sure there is a demand for J seats - I just wonder, given the general market there, whether it is a demand from people who are willing to pay to be there, rather than using points/upgrades/op-ups etc.

I remember when South African dropped first class from Perth, one of their comments was that people flying on first on that route typically weren't paying to be there!

 

[Moopere]

I remember when South African dropped first class from Perth, one of their comments was that people flying on first on that route typically weren't paying to be there!

I still can't understand this notion. One hears it spoken of a lot. If I used points to fly Sth African F and those points were a partner airline, then SA air would get paid by the partner, if I used SA points then those points get written off and no longer show as a liability - either way is a good result. This type of scenario would only be a problem if the F seat cost too little or if there were some problem with the real value of the FF points.

Sure, I understand that there is nothing quite as nice as fresh new money, and a full fare F is just delightful (I'm sure) - But surely providing services to customers is all about extracting value from them, whilst at the same time providing services that make them want to keep giving you money over time.

What I can understand, and one wonders if this is the _real_ reason for some airlines dropping say the F cabin, is if the airline doesn't really do F well or views it more as a J++. The added effort and back-end cost trying to provide for a market that the airline really doesn't do could well outweigh the benefit in either cash revenue or points burn.

 

[Moopere]

Still as confused as ever. Check this from a search PER-HKT this morning:

[TABLE="class: dijitReset fareDetails"]
[TR]
[TD]==============================
Fare 1: Carrier DJ FZDSVA PER to HKT (rules)

Passenger type ADT, one-way fare, booking code
F
Covers PER-HKT (First) [/TD]
[TD="class: farePrice"]AU$341.59[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Fare 2: Carrier DJ FZDSVA HKT to PER (rules)

Passenger type ADT, one-way fare, booking code
F
Covers HKT-PER (First)

[/TD]
[TD="class: farePrice"]AU$341.59[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

==============================

F class no less !!!!

I'm sorry, putrifying search results during airline transition is not going to win any points with me. I can't understand why essentially Y class seats can't use one of the myriad Y class codes. Sure, later on, maybe, in the fullness of time, some of these seats may become J or similar, so change your classes then.

Its too difficult to wade through. Despite keeping my options open later when DJ gets their act together, for now, they go into the same bin as JQ. Simply de-select during searches because they just create obfuscation.

 

[antycbr]

Booking codes change over time. R (Romeo) class is a good example. R class used to be used for supersonic, first class flights on Concorde by British Airways, but once those services ceased R became another discount economy class. It took a while for all IT systems for BA, oneworld partners, GDS, itinerary management tools and the like to catch up and stop displaying R as a First class seat. So for non-airline-owned systems, they have to be programmed to display the correct fare basis for _every_ airline.

Virgin are still using Navitaire for bookings on all but V Australia services, and integration with GDS wasn't probably the first of their priorities. Ironically, F is actually the _lowest_ non-sale fare available on Virgin and used to be the Go! fare when those still existed. It is also the fare you need to have available if booking 2-4-1s using a Virgin Flyer credit card.

I agree that it doesn't make a lot of sense, but I expect if Virgin move across to using something like Amadeus for all bookings they will become a lot more standardised. V Australia already use DIJC for Business; WSRO for Premium; YB for full fare economy and everything else is discount economy. You'll note that O class on V Australia is Premium Economy, but on Qantas it's one of the lowest Red-E-Deals so there is no consistency.

 

[serfty]

While there is some level of conformity, different airlines use different codes for different things.

It make sense for DJ to use F as an economy fare bucket as they don't have any first class cabins to use it on, so why not use it?

For may airlines, C class is full fare business; Qantas use J.

 

[Moopere]

I understand that the codes are not standardised, but geez, some, over time, have become defacto 'standards' and surely F, J and Y would be amongst those. To be fair, now that I've gotten off my soapbox, I was doing that search, pasted above, on the matrix site using the "business class or higher" filter ... so its matrix's problem, not DJ's - but one can easily see how this happened.

Thus, the need for ExpertFlyer and the ability to see the booking cabin (Serfty, thanks for your pointers on my other thread).

 

[Moopere]

Couldn't let this one go as its putrifying my search results. Here is what ExpertFlyer thinks are the DJ Class codes

Class Code	Airline Code	Description
A	DJ	ECONOMY
B	DJ	ECONOMY
C	DJ	BUSINESS
D	DJ	BUSINESS
E	DJ	ECONOMY
F	DJ	FIRST CLASS
H	DJ	ECONOMY
I	DJ	DISCOUNT BUSINESS
J	DJ	BUSINESS
K	DJ	ECONOMY
L	DJ	ECONOMY
M	DJ	ECONOMY
N	DJ	ECONOMY
P	DJ	FIRST CLASS
Q	DJ	ECONOMY
R	DJ	ECONOMY
S	DJ	ECONOMY
T	DJ	ECONOMY
U	DJ	ECONOMY
V	DJ	ECONOMY
W	DJ	ECONOMY
X	DJ	ECONOMY
Y	DJ	ECONOMY

So even EF has got it wrong????? Or is DJ really playing silly games ... hmm.

Interestingly though EF seems to be aware that this booking is in an economy cabin. So, a first class booking code in an economy cabin. I've got so much to learn to try and make any sense of that one