When you search for flights on WhereTo, we display the relevant airline booking codes on both our flight results page as well as our flight detail pages.
Airline fare (booking) codes are used to identify the price and rules associated with each seat on an airplane. While there are many visible differences between seats (cabin class, legroom, etc.), each seat also carries different rules for baggage allowances, refunds, changes, frequent flyer/elite credit, etc.
A traveler’s itinerary may contain multiple flight booking codes. Oftentimes the most restrictive code dictates the terms for the entire itinerary.
For example, a non-refundable leg may make an entire flight itinerary non-refundable. In these cases, please check with a travel agent or the airline itself to know for certain.
Booking codes may help explain why some flights that seem to be identical have different prices. For example, an economy flight might include checked bags in the fare, while another one ay not. It may cause the flights to look the same, but they will be slightly different.
Important: for travelers who are trying to understand these codes (as there are many of them), the single-character codes themselves are non-descriptive and they differ from airline to airline.
The best way to understand specific airline codes is to search for them on the individual airline’s site to ensure that the booking code information is up-to-date. There are also many online sources for airline code information, but they may or may not be current.
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