What is a "full fare"?
 

When I see things in the news about bagggage fees it goes through a list of those who are not afffected. One is people who paid "full fare economy class". What is the definition of a "full fare economy" ticket? Does that mean if I bought it straight off the airline's website without any discounts?

Full fares are typically defined as Y or S class tickets which would allow a certain(generally higher) level of changes to the fare.

A quick search for me yielded this on yahoo:

In the main Y and S are used for the full price economy tickets. The price depends on several factors, how much you need to be able to change the ticket, if you want to be able to refund the ticket and how much in advance you buy the ticket and the length of the tickets validity, to name a few As restrictions are added, the fare basis code gets longer. There is sometimes a logic to the code. For example, you get L14EURBA which could be a 14 day advance purchase, Europe, British Airways Sometimes Airlines just take a bit of licence (WOWLH for example) How these are put together depends on the airline there is no universal ruling on this. Business class is uaually J, C or D and cheap business Z. P, F and A are usually First Class. There are a few funny ones - like N class on BA - known in the trade as "No bloody good" beacuse it cannot be refunded changed or anything and it can influence the rest of the ticket!

Thanks, that explains EVERYTHING!:eek:

Its the most expensive possible fare in coach (which many times are actually more expensive than restricted First fares). The full fares are typically fully refundable up until departure so people with very sporadic schedules such as consultants often pay for the flexibility of being able to change travel plans instantly. Giving these people free checked bags is kind of a farce because most of them are as savvy as crewmembers and carry-on and are furthermore typically very frequent fliers that are immune to the charges in the first place, but the airlines want to keep these customers so they aren’t getting nickel and dimed.

A "Full Fare" is like the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause... a myth!