What does the flight jargon "fare class" actually mean? Is it the same as either "fare basis (code)" or "travel class"?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 3 Aug, 2023
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The fare basis is the airline’s identifier of your exact air fare. This is usually an impenetrable looking 7-to-8 letter string like TA2PXOW.
The extended version of this is the fare construction, which adds in key details like what flight from where to where this air fare is for.
The fare class is simply the first letter of the fare basis, which identifies the “bucket” of seats the fare is in and often maps directly to how many frequent flyer miles you’ll get for the flight. This is also known as booking class or, confusingly, ticket class.
Finally, travel class is the class of the physical seat you end up in on the plane: first, business, premium economy, economy, etc.
An illustrated example of all four for the same ticket, from long to short:
Fare construction: CPT TK X/IST TK NYC 406.06 TA2PXOW NUC 406.06 END ROE 10.146090 XT 1.60EV 2.00UM 18.70WC 32.40ZA 6.80TR 5.50YC 7.00XY 5.00XA 17.20US 278.40YR (Cape Town on Turkish Airways transfer at Istanbul on Turkish Airways to New York City $406.06 for fare basis TA2PXOW …)
Fare basis: TA2PXOW
Fare class: T, Discount Economy
Travel class: Economy
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘