How to read fare classes and booking rules

Every plane ticket carries a letter booking-class code (Booking/Reservation Booking Designator) — it doesn't set your physical seat, but the fare category within the cabin. The generally accepted (though not strictly standardized — each airline has its own set) logic is: Y is a full, undiscounted economy fare; letters like B, M, H, Q, K, L, V are cheaper economy fares with varying refund/change restrictions; J and C are full and discounted business class; D, I, Z are cheaper business variants.

The "deeper" a letter sits in this logic (farther from Y and J), the stricter the refund and date-change rules usually are — but the exact mapping from letters to conditions differs per airline, so rely on the fare description at booking, not the letter itself.

Wizz Air has four tiers: WIZZ Basic is just a small under-seat bag, no overhead-bin space and no checked bag; WIZZ Go adds seat selection and a 20 kg checked bag; WIZZ Plus adds extra-legroom seating, up to 32 kg checked and a free date change; WIZZ Priority adds priority boarding and a second cabin bag. Data comes from Wizz Air's official fares page.

Ryanair has three tiers: Regular includes priority boarding and 2 cabin bags plus a standard seat; Plus adds a 20 kg checked bag and free airport check-in; Flexi Plus adds any-seat selection, fast-track security (where available), and a free same-day flight/date change. Data comes from Ryanair's official Help Centre.

FlyOne has Light and Standard with no checked bag, and Loyal and Advantage with 25-30 kg included. HiSky has Basic, Classic, Premium, and Premium Plus, where standard cabin baggage is included on every fare except Basic, and checked baggage grows from 8-10 kg on Basic/Classic to 20 kg on Premium/Premium Plus.

Turkish Airlines, Lufthansa, LOT Polish Airlines, TAROM, and Austrian Airlines split fares, at the base level, into Economy and Business, and most have several Economy sub-tiers (basic/classic/flexible) with different change and refund conditions. The general industry rule: the cheaper the economy sub-tier, the bigger the penalty (or outright ban) on changes/refunds, while flexible and business fares usually allow free or lower-fee date changes.

Exact change/refund penalty amounts at full-service airlines depend heavily on the route, how far ahead you book, and the current fare conditions, and can only be reliably confirmed when booking on the airline's own site — we're intentionally not quoting figures we couldn't verify directly.

As of July 2026.

Four questions before buying: how much baggage is actually included (and what adding more later costs — usually more than at booking); can you change the date for free if plans shift; what happens to a refund if you cancel the trip entirely; is a seat included — otherwise the airline may split up your group.

Current baggage allowances for all 18 airlines flying from Chisinau are in our separate baggage allowance guide.

Wizz Air fare data comes from the official Fares & Bundles page. Ryanair fare data comes from the official Ryanair Help Centre (direct page access was restricted when we checked; data was confirmed via its search indexing). FlyOne and HiSky data comes from Decolare.md's own database, updated July 2026.

Check-in and baggage conditions for every airline from Chisinau are on the Airlines page, and current route prices are on the Decolare.md homepage.