I tend to avoid business class even when entitled to it except for overnight flights, but being entitled to business class travel on a government board the computer always requires me to explain myself. And though it has an option where you can say that you’re entitled to fly at a higher class, it doesn’t have an option to allow you to explain that you’re happy enough with a lower class fare. So much so that the computer decided to take a couple of hours out of my life and nearly three times as much off the government in order to send me business class. So I had to tell the system that I was overriding it, though, since none of the pull down reasons were the reason I was doing what I was doing, I picked “LPF/IBF ACCEPTED “. No doubt a reader can tell me what that means, but I had no idea. At least I wasn’t telling a lie as I would have been by choosing any of the other options which I knew were wrong. Seemed to do the trick.
Flight (MELBOURNE to CANBERRA): Wed 21 Mar 2012
Airline | Depart | Arrival | Flight No. | Stops | Fare Type | Price |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
19:00 | 20:05 | QF822 | 0 | FULLY FLEXIBLE *P | AUD $333.83 |
Best Available Fare In Policy
Airline | Depart | Arrival | Flight No. | Stops | Fare Type | Price |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sector 1 – MELBOURNE to SYDNEY | ||||||
19:00 | 20:25 | QF462 | 0 | BUSINESS *P | AUD$1,031.00 | |
Sector 2 – SYDNEY to CANBERRA | ||||||
21:10 | 22:05 | QF807 | 0 |
Cheaper fare selected outside of policy.
Change flight to Best Fare:
Please select reason for not choosing best fare: Please select a reason… LPF/IBF ACCEPTED APPROVAL/ENTITLEMENT TO TRAVEL AT HIGHER FARE CLASS REQUIRE FLEXIBILITY TO CHANGE BOOKING HEALTH AND SAFETY ISSUES – PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITIES UNSUITABLE DUE TO TIME ROUTING OR CONNECTIONS
LPF – Lowest Practical Fare
IBF – International Best Fare
http://www.finance.gov.au/procurement/travel-and-related-services/docs/July_2010-Question_and_Answers_on_Whole-of-Australian-Government_Travel_Arrangements.pdf
It goes on to say over 10,000 fares have been pre-negotiated so presumably getting bums on seats for melbourne -> sydney -> canberra on a wednesday night was worth some token discount from Qantas and thus a computer decided a discount is more important that absolute value of the tickets.
Probably not saving the taxpayer quite as much as you, Nick, but I always take the Skybus into Melbourne, rather than catching a cab.
Travelling economy class was a kind of badge of honour amongst ‘old style’ economic rationalists. After all it’s amazingly expensive to just sit there in a wider seat and the main benefit is status – about which it was regarded as vaguely disreputable to care. The more tangible private benefit – though again somewhat tainted – is the improved networking opportunities with rich and/or powerful people (as opposed to networking opportunities with less rich and/or powerful people)
Back in my days in the PC (then IC) I’d always book economy but because I was in the ‘Managers Lounge’ at Ansett about 7 times out of ten they’d upgrade me to business. Like so many things in aviation, they now do the opposite in the interests of revenue/load/profit maximisation. Back then ‘stand by’ was the cheapest way to fly, now it’s the most expensive. And they don’t upgrade frequent flyers to business because it’s frequent flyers who are most likely to fly business.
Anyway, I recall our chairman of the time urging those entitled to fly business because it was a more serious way to fly – we could do work on our laptops. This seemed a bit much given how much we were upgrade and also the fact that economy class didn’t stop me working on my laptop. (One of the reasons I use a netbook sized laptop is so I can work in economy class!
As for the Skybus I’ve occasionally taken it into town, but I drive and park in the long term car-parking lot. And one thing I dislike about Skybus is that you can pay to get on and think it will be leaving in a minute or so and sit there and wait for ten minutes or more – and then wait some more at the next terminal. A pain.
(I think I’ve now talked myself into travelling business and using hire cars ;)