Zed Fares

[fltdspx]

It appears that ASA and Delta are getting together to discuss YET another non-rev travel benefits , does anyone have any thoughts or insight on this.

 

[cargoflyr69]

I love the option of having ZED fares for my personal travel. They have opened up many interesting travel destinations for me. There are literally hundreds of airlines through the world you can fly on!

Pros: fully refundable, good for 3-6 months with open dates of travel, good on any ZED participating airline that is on your ticketed city pair. Your whole family including parents are eligible

Cons: After paying the ZED charge and the taxes they can get to be pricey. Must purchase them from your own companies ticket counter. (your outta luck if you need to buy one in Cairo or Bali) Many foreign carriers do not recognise "travel companions" or Dom. Partners if you are single.

 

[dojetdriver]

Cons: After paying the ZED charge and the taxes they can get to be pricey. Must purchase them from your own companies ticket counter. (your outta luck if you need to buy one in Cairo or Bali) Many foreign carriers do not recognise "travel companions" or Dom. Partners if you are single.

True, but for int'l travel they can be way cheaper than an ID90.

When I went to AKL, ZED on QA nonstop from LAX, $215.

ID90 on AZ, nonstop from LAX, $550.

 

[Flybywire44]

Umm... I don't think they're refundable. You're thinking ID-#'s.

 

[dojetdriver]

Umm... I don't think they're refundable. You're thinking ID-#'s.

BOTH are refundable.

 

[Looking]

ZED fares come in Low - medium - & high.
Depending on your airlines agreement with the other airline you will fall into one of these 3 categories.

Most overseas airlines requi re at least 6 months of employment; however, for the correct fare and charges you MUST check your own airlines agreements.

Low is close to ID90, Medium close to ID75, and High is ... well you might as well by a ticket.

In order to be able to use one ticket issued for airline X on the same route for airline Z, the fare agreements must also be on the same OR a higher cost level. Med will cover Low but Low will not cover a Med.

Some airline are good and don't care to much while others stick to the letter of the agreement.

:cartman:

 

[John Pennekamp]

ZED fares come in Low - medium - & high.
Depending on your airlines agreement with the other airline you will fall into one of these 3 categories.

Most overseas airlines requi re at least 6 months of employment; however, for the correct fare and charges you MUST check your own airlines agreements.

Low is close to ID90, Medium close to ID75, and High is ... well you might as well by a ticket.

In order to be able to use one ticket issued for airline X on the same route for airline Z, the fare agreements must also be on the same OR a higher cost level. Med will cover Low but Low will not cover a Med.

Some airline are good and don't care to much while others stick to the letter of the agreement.

:cartman:

That's good to know. I'm sure we can count on being in the "high" fare bracket here at ASA.

 

[ASAFOE120]

Knowing delta, they will probably even make a new category for ASA: ULTRA-HIGH!!

 

[Hulk Hogan]

anybody have a cheat sheet on how to use zed fares? going to germany in the spring. thanks

 

[doug_or]

Low is close to ID90, Medium close to ID75, and High is ... well you might as well by a ticket.

ZED high usually comes out cheaper than a ID90 (at least from my experience). From the west coast to Europe it is $114 plus taxes. While ID90 varies from airline to airline (based on full fare), it would almost always be more than that. Most agreements I've seen (only worked for 2 airlines) were ZED low or medium for employees (making the above example cost $53 or $67) and immediate family, except parents who were ZED high. As long as the gate agent knows what he or she is doing ZED fares offer additional portability as they can be used on other airlines you have agreements with and to different city pairs that are within or less than the distance purchased for (ZED fares are based on mileage zones).

 

[Motown]

ZED to Germany for XJ employees

anybody have a cheat sheet on how to use zed fares? going to germany in the spring. thanks

Where are you leaving from?

You can take NW nonstop from Detroit-- leaves about dinner time and gets in about 7:30 AM or so. Return leaves FRA about 10:30 and gets in early afternoon. E-pass-- so just make the reservation through 800-NWA-NREV just like any other flight. If you jumpseat instead of non-rev, they will often put you in Business Class and it will be free.

If you are alone, I suggest jumpseating. UAL out of Chicago or Dulles, CAL from Newark, DAL from Cinci or Atlanta, USAirways from... from... Philly, I think. All are free from the US except Delta-- they charge $2.50 to leave the US. Out of Frankfurt go to the airlines' purchase ticket counter and pay the departure taxes-- with the weak dollar the taxes have more than doubled to almost $60 on most airlines. Continental has NEVER charged me, though. Thanks CAL!!!

ZED tickets:

1. Call 1-800-NWA-NREV
2. Press the menu option for Other Airlines, then NOT in the US or Canada. You will be connected to a reservation agent. Tell her/him that you want to order a ZED ticket on XYZ airlines from ABC to FRA. They will ask for your employee number, etc. It will take awhile, but you will get a PNR. Expect about $100 to Germany and $150 back to the US (higher departure taxes). We get ZED-Medium on most airlines. We get ZED-Low on a couple (Air France, Alitalia, some others). We can only buy Y fare ZEDs, not C or F. That sucks with foreign carriers who will only upgrade us if we buy the upgraded ZED ticket. Most US carriers participate in ZED, but not United for some reason.
3. Go to ANY NWA ticket counter with your PNR and credit card. They will print the ticket and charge your card. Our outstations probably haven't done it before, but tell them that it is just like buying any other ticket... except make sure they have the price right. They will print out a white cover page, a green ticket for each leg, and a green receipt ticket; staple them all together, draw the diaganal lines, and you're done.
4. Call the airline in question and make a non-rev reservation. The ZED program allows you to buy 1st, Bussiness or Coach ZED passes, but NWA only sells the Coach tickets so expect to sit in the back on any foreign carrier.
   1. Delta will ALWAYS try to get you up front... unless you have little kids with you.
   2. Continental usually tries to get you up front.
   3. USAirways unknown.
   4. AA has the reputation of never upgrading anybody, but I have never tried.
   5. United does NOT participate in the ZED program, so don't try to buy a ZED on United.
   6. You can't use ZED on NWA since you are already in the NWA system (just E-pass)
   7. Foreign carriers will almost always put you in coach.
   8. Lufthansa goes out of their way to give you an empty seat next to you if you are a non-rev... but they will only upgrade you if you buy an upgraded ZED pass... which we can't do at NWA.
5. Show up at the airline, check in at the front counter, give them the ZED ticket.
6. If, for example, your ZED ticket is for FRA-ATL on Delta and the flight is full, you can take the same ticket to Lufthansa and use it.
7. ZED tickets are good for Zones. If you have a 5-zone ZED ticket, in theory you can fly any carrier to any destination that is 5 zones away. I did this once out of Frankfurt-- Air Canada to Toronto was oversold, so I took USAirways to Philly and they accepted the same ZED ticket without question... even though it was a different airline AND a different destination.

Hope this helps.

 

[John Pennekamp]

Just to make sure I understand... ZED is still low priority space available, right? As in below buddy passes? Not that is matters since Delta doesn't offer ASA the option to participate.

 

[dash8driver]

Just to make sure I understand... ZED is still low priority space available, right? As in below buddy passes? Not that is matters since Delta doesn't offer ASA the option to participate.

yea.. zed has the same boarding priority as id-90. its actually a replacement for the id-90 as more and more carriers are converting their id-90 agreements to zed agreements.

you can also contact your pass office for your login for flyzed.com. it lets you list on some of the airlines and it also gives you a rough idea of what the loads are.

 

[homerjdispatch]

Just to make sure I understand... ZED is still low priority space available, right? As in below buddy passes? Not that is matters since Delta doesn't offer ASA the option to participate.

Thats wierd...Skywest has partcipated in the ZED program for a few years. Wouldnt SkyWest, INC., not Delta be the ones to offer ASA the option?

 

[John Pennekamp]

Thats wierd...Skywest has partcipated in the ZED program for a few years. Wouldnt SkyWest, INC., not Delta be the ones to offer ASA the option?

We don't know. In fact, we just learned of it this month. We also don't get ID-90s anymore. Apparently Delta terminated this option when our pass benefits were changed and nobody in management noticed it.

We're aware that those of you at our sister company still have this benefit. ASA management claims they're "negotiating" to get it back, but that's all we've been told. Why Jerry or Brad can't just extend the SkyWest program to us (we are SkyWest employees, after all) nobody seems to understand. Once again, we're the ugly step kids of the family.

 

[zasca]

medium zed to japan and back cost me 241 bucks. Not great considering the big boys can international jumpseat on AA. And published roundtrip fares were 974 for my friend up till the day of departure. Although I'm sure the "highest" fare in coach was 2-3 grand, not that anyone actually pays that...

 

[Airboss]

ASA employees who non-rev have something to celebrate as Delta introduces ZED fares and includes ASA in new interline agreements with Alaska (AS), Continental (CO) and Northwest (NW), beginning Feb1.
(Ourasa)

 

[Tim47SIP]

ZED's Comming!

So, if Delta did do this, would we go to a Delta counter to buy or an ASA counter. I guess it would be Delta as there are no ASA counters (I think) in ATL. That will be great if it is true.

 

[fltdspx]

So, if Delta did do this, would we go to a Delta counter to buy or an ASA counter. I guess it would be Delta as there are no ASA counters (I think) in ATL. That will be great if it is true.

You are correct there are no ASA counters it's all Delta. It would appear that the flight benefits Delta has with ASA, Comair, SkyWest still are in place and who knows if that will change, if that does change I hops it goes back the way it was

 

[Hulk Hogan]

Thanks Motown. I will be leaving out of DTW heading to Berlin. Found a link on the company web site as well. Thanks again.