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Did the BA IT glitch Pimp my fare bucket?

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Did the BA IT glitch Pimp my fare bucket?

Yesterday I flew back from Europe on BA in Club Europe/World. I’d booked the tickets to originate in Stockholm, route through Heathrow, and ultimately arrive in LA ( Stockholm has replaced Dublin for cheaper business fares this year) on a discount business class fare booked into “I’ on the longhaul, LHR-LAX.  However, a few days before I was scheduled the fly…BA had a MAJOR IT meltdown. I believe, because of the IT glitch, at least my outbound flights were all bumped up to fullfare biz – “J” ( I don’t fly the return for quite some time so I don’t know if the entire ticket has been bumped up – using FinnAir still shows I).  This is a really big deal because I’m crediting these BA flights to Alaska…the difference between I and J? 50% bonus vs 150% bonus – BYAH! So did the BA IT glitch pimp my fare bucket…I think YES!

Here is the original booking…

As you can see the original Longhaul routing was booked into “I”

Did the BA IT glitch Pimp my fare bucket?

Here’s my boarding pass showing the upgraded fare bucket

Did the BA IT glitch Pimp my fare bucket?

The difference in class of service earnings? Check it out. Massive!

a screenshot of a screen

So what happened?

We’ll see in a week or so if I was actually bumped to J or not…My feeling is the mayhem of the IT glitch resulted in all/some tickets being rebooked into full fare/full earning fare buckets. Perhaps the system broke down and they couldn’t discern between fare buckets and anyone flying on the surrounding dates of the glitch were just given the best fare bucket for their class. Time will tell and I’ll report back when my MileagePlan account shows the flight credit.

 

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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10 Comments

  • Adrian June 1, 2017

    It will always show j on the boarding pass as it’s the cabin

  • […] I wrote about how BA bumped my fare bucket from discount business ” I ” to full fare ” J ” on the long haul portion of […]

  • baccarat_guy June 1, 2017

    My boarding pass for an award ticket LHR-BOS in BA First yesterday…. Has Class “F,” and it most definitely NOT an “F” bucket ticket.

  • Christopher June 1, 2017

    It’s only there to indicate the class of service, not the fare code. I flew an I fare on Finnair HEL-LHR and the British Airways LHR-YYZ a few weeks ago and my BA boarding pass said J. I was given credit for I.

  • Adam June 1, 2017

    As DT says, I’ve only ever seen J on a business class boarding class on BA, regardless of the actual booking class. I recall the same excitement myself the first time I noticed.

  • DT May 31, 2017

    Sorry to burst your bubble, but the boarding pass only shows cabin class (Y, J, or F) and not your booking class. I’ve had award flights that showed J instead of U

  • Chris May 31, 2017

    I was wondering the same thing… I was supposed to fly Monday cdg-lhr-bos in O class but was reticketed direct on AA in Y class. I’m crediting to BA and the difference between O and Y is 50 tier points (20 to 70) and about 2000 more rdm. I’m interested to see how it credits as well

    • Miles May 31, 2017

      Chris – interesting data point. Thanks for the input and I have a feeling we’re going to be pleasantly surprised 🙂

      • Chris June 1, 2017

        Sure enough my tier points and Avios posted as a Y fare ticket! Sure helps my pursuit of OneWorld Sapphire. I hope you have the same luck!

        • Miles June 1, 2017

          Amazing! I’m wondering if I’m not in a slightly different situation than you as my ticket wasn’t reissued. Time will tell. I’d lucked out last year on a cancelled BA flight credited to AA that got reticketed and reclassified from I to J and helped push me over the EP threshold. I’m going to go and create my visualization board and “Secret” it 😉

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