Mmm. This was an interesting observation. I wonder if there is subtlety in how the Virgin Short Haul product is managed that they are not exposing to us? Looking around their site and the general blurb out there makes it appear that Domestic and Short Haul are managed in much the same way ... yet, as Serfty observed, there is no Q class shown by Expert Flyer for DJ on Domestic, yet its there on short haul to DPS.
I actually left out one key phrase word in my post, which you were replying to: "One other thing - based on a bunch of searching I've done this afternoon I reckon DJ don't list accurate counts in their fare buckets (as reported by EF)
for short-haul international". It's easy to find a domestic DJ flight where fare buckets show something other than 4, 7 or C, but I couldn't find a single example for short-haul international.
I do agree with your supposition that short-haul international is somehow managed / presented differently to domestic too. Apart from the above 4/7/C availability in all fare buckets, there's also the different fare classes appearing / not appearing (e.g. Q, W), and the fact that fare buckets seem to change to "C" (closed) rather than 0 (zero) on EF for short-haul international, whereas on domestic they change to 0.
As suggested a few posts above, the order the buckets are listed on EF almost suggests that O is a J class fare of some type, and as I whizzed along availability on EF it seemed that O was always less a number than J ... but then:
PER-ADL-MEL
J4 O7 H7 Y7 I7 D0 N0 B0 M0 S0 T0 A0 U0 X0 R0 F0 L0 P0 C0 E0
Mmm. Pretty strange that both O and H have more availability than J on what is otherwise, apparently, a pretty full flight with only Y and I available in the economy cabin. Note that this flight is not PER-MEL, but PER-ADL-MEL and loses the "W" class (PE) ....
I don't think that's
that strange - just because you have J4 O7 H7 doesn't mean H (and maybe O) aren't related to business class - it might just be a quirk of the way DJ choose to show availabilty in these fare buckets. e.g. there could be 8 free seats in J, but for whatever reason DJ decides to show J4 and H7, same as all airlines set an upper cap on how many fares they will show available in any given class (e.g. how QF will show Y9 even if they'd be willing to sell 50 seats in Y fare bucket).
Based on the last few posts, it sounds like the consensus is that O - at least domestically - is flexi Y. That complicates things, as if correct it means EF does
not show the fare buckets "in order" - O always appears to be listed to the left of Y (and even to the left of H, which we seem to have confirmed is a J fare bucket).
Based on that supposition, I went back to my original EF data and had a look at all fare buckets which were still showing availability on the day where the Velocity booking engine offered me 2 x J award fares despite the H fare bucket showing as closed. The buckets still showing availability were: J, O, Y, I, N, S, P, Q.
Therefore, I guess we can suppose one of the following is correct:
1) At least one out of J, O, Y, I, N, S, P, Q is related to J award fares. Assuming the "firm" data posted in this thread (e.g. post 19) is correct, we can eliminate J, O, Y, N, S, which just leaves I (guess is some sort of goodwill / last minute changes code), Q (guess is points upgrade to J) and P (no idea).
2) H is the only fare bucket related to J award fares, but they open up more availability to higher-tier FFs (I am DJ WP thanks to a status match) and this isn't shown on EF as EF doesn't support custom results based on DJ FF tier like they do for QF and some others (actually, does this customisation affect flight availability on EF for QF? Or only seat maps?).
3) H is the only fare bucket related to J award fares and DJ are willing to "sell" some J award fares out the J (full fare paid) fare bucket or something else odd like that - again, maybe only to higher-tier FFs.
Which is it? Hmmm... I'm really unsure, but if I was forced to guess I'd say I, Q and P are not related to J awards (#1 above), so the answer is either #2 or #3.
It'd be interesting to see if lower-tier members see the same results I do, or something different. I just re-checked, and the Velocity booking engine is still offering me 2 x J award seats MEL-DPS on 02/11/12 (DJ4153) whilst showing "Sold Out" if I search for 4, and the flight availability on EF is still the same as what I posted earlier in this thread. Are there any non status / Silver / Gold DJ FFs out there willing to run the same search and post the results?
