Saturday Night Stopovers

[cargosales]

Here's a good one.

Virgin are claiming that they have to charge more for weekday flights / less for those involving a Saturday night stopover because IATA rules state they must.

Can't believe it. Someone please tell me it isn't true.

CS

[PaperTiger]

Where do they claim this ?

Sounds like complete bovine evacuation.

[cargosales]

From their 'customer service' people.

I got a mail from them about being able to change booked tickets at no charge (to persuade people to keep booking despite impending war. Sent them one back saying " that didn't make any difference to me using VS more this year. Times are tough, business travel budget cut so if they want me to travel more then drop the Sat night stopover rule and I'll use them ".

E.g. LHR-JNB in PE = £1450 ish for out and back the same week which my company won't wear. The same with a Sat stopover = £880 ish which is ok with my company but not with me. Their loss.

To quote them exactly

I am sorry that you are not happy with the restrictions that we have on our our fares. The rules are governed by IATA and not ourselves, so it is doubtful that these rulings will change. Most airlines will have the same restrictions on economical fares.

CS

[PaperTiger]

The rules are governed by IATA and not ourselves

The above is not strictly a true statement, but is probably an easier 'brush-off' than trying to explain the actual situation.

I won't attempt to do that either, the complexities are beyond my feeble reasoning. Essentially, international fares must be filed with IATA and are usually agreed on a bilateral basis between the countries involved. The discounted fares (APEX as was) are each filed with an individual fare code number and all the associated restrictions, such as seasons, days of the week, stay requirements, and change/refund policies. While it's true that these tariffs must be adhered to, it is not IATA which sets the prices and rules, but the airlines and nations in question.

So Virgin's answer is sort of true (ie. they can't break the rules for you), but their explanation is not.

Hope that makes some kind of sense

[bealine]

Yes - the complexities of fares rules are mind-blowing and, to the layman, must seem bewildering!

However, bear in mind that, until a few years ago, the bulk of travel was carried out by businessmen with strict instructions from "her indoors" that he had to be home by tea-time on Friday night!

Saturday was, generally, a dead day at airports - apart from a few "Jolly Chaps" off to the flesh pots of Amsterdam or to the Alps for a bit of skiing!

The "Saturday Night Stopover" clause on low-cost tickets was introduced so that it would be of no use to the business traveller - indeed they are still advertised as "excursion" fares (hence APEX - Advance Purchase Excursion)

Times have changed and, now, Saturday is probably the busiest day of the airport week!

However, let's face it, if we remove the restrictions from the low-yield tickets and give you Frequent Flyer mileage, who is going to pay the High-Yield fares?