I know we've been through this a thousand times, but I just need to share my frustration with the outdated online channel US uses to try and sell us tickets.

I'm trying to book a MR on the cheap SFO-ORF fares. I've come up with some great combinations that Expedia will book for me such as SFO-SEA-CLT-ORF-CLT-MSP-DEN-SFO. Of course USAirways.com can't do anything nearly as complex... fares come up in the $1000 range rather than the $225 I get from Expedia. FWIW, a simple SFO-PHL-ORF RT is $212 on the website.

However, the extra miles gained for that routing don't quite seem worth it to me when you consider the loss of the 1000 mile booking bonus, the extra $5 booking fee, the extra $ in PFCs, and of course the extra time in transit (and limited to E+ on UA rather than getting a chance of an upgrade).

So, I figured, I'd make my trip easier and just do a simple SFO-CLT-ORF-PHL-SFO trip. Since I have a bunch of friends in Philly, and none in Norfolk, why not build in a 3.5 hour layover in PHL? Can USAirways.com do it? No. I don't know why. It is a legal connection, but it adds hundreds to the cost. Expedia will do it for me for $217 -- $5 more than US -- but then I loose the 1000 mile bonus, making this MR less worthwhile.

I know we've been told that improvements are on the way, back button functionality is a start, and I love the search by price. What I don't understand is how US can compete with the other carriers who allow much more complex arrangements (see the Continental implementation of itasoftware for example). I know, I know, we're in ch. 11 so just staying in the air is the most important thing. But driving customers to this channel for their purchases (by charging a phone reservation fee) when it is inadequate won't really help keep those planes full no matter how cheap the fare.

Well hopefully the new website will be launched 1st quarter of 2005. Hopefully we can have more legs added to flights as well.

T

I wanted to book a UA trip from PHL to ABQ next week, I selected my flights on UA.com, go through the whole process and hit the purchase button and it comes back "Segment(s) unavailable". O.K. I'll try US' site. Same itin and I can get the flights but its $100.00 more!

I know I'll be able to understand the theory of relativity before I'll understand airline ticket pricing policies. :rolleyes:

BTW, if I call UA and have them change my DM number to MP will I lose the on-line booking bonus?

as long as we're hitting the website...

when they redo the thing they designers ought to see that it works as well with Firefox as Explorer. the current version of usairways.com loads slowly on Firefox.

So, I figured, I'd make my trip easier and just do a simple SFO-CLT-ORF-PHL-SFO trip. Since I have a bunch of friends in Philly, and none in Norfolk, why not build in a 3.5 hour layover in PHL? Can USAirways.com do it? No. I don't know why. It is a legal connection, but it adds hundreds to the cost. Expedia will do it for me for $217 -- $5 more than US -- but then I loose the 1000 mile bonus, making this MR less worthwhile.


I have these problems as well sometimes and its definitely frustrating as there's no feedback - sometimes the only feedback you get is a higher price :rolleyes: .

Easiest way to figure out what's going on is to call US Res and give them your exact flights, have them price the itin out. If its coming up lower, then you know for sure the website is being dumb; If its coming up high just like the website had said the res agent should be able to give you a reasoning why and you can pick different flights so you can book it online. ^ The routing you had seems totally legit as SFO-ORF requires a connection in one of the hubs no matter what.

Good luck!

-JC

maybe my memory is not the same as it used to, (I turned 23 quite recently) ;) , but I thought the new web site was supposed to be up and running by fall of 2004???

synd

I know we've been told that improvements are on the way, back button functionality is a start, and I love the search by price. What I don't understand is how US can compete with the other carriers who allow much more complex arrangements (see the Continental implementation of itasoftware for example). I know, I know, we're in ch. 11 so just staying in the air is the most important thing. But driving customers to this channel for their purchases (by charging a phone reservation fee) when it is inadequate won't really help keep those planes full no matter how cheap the fare.


This is what irritates me. They drive us to the website, but the darned thing doesn't work! I can honestly say that 50% of the time I'm trying to book or do research on usair.com halfway through the process it gives me that ANNOYING :mad: error message and tells me to click on "start again." How are we supposed to even sucessfully book travel if this happens so often. Non-frequent flyers would probably just give up and look elsewhere.

1. once upon a time i got a pile of segments by clicking the show additional flights link at the bottom... kept doing so until i got really "undesirable" options w/ as many segments as possible, and the price was ok

2. are you arranging things on orbitz and getting ff miles? maybe i am confused, but i thought that tix bought through orbitz, travelocity, etc., did not qualify for ff miles??

just wondering....

as long as we're hitting the website...

when they redo the thing they designers ought to see that it works as well with Firefox as Explorer. the current version of usairways.com loads slowly on Firefox.

seems alright in firefox - today is my first use of firefox, and it seems to run all web pages faster than IE, including usair.

maybe there are settings, cache, etc??? since i just started, i don't know all the goodies on firefox.... it seems great.

i know that is a slight diversion from FLYER forum to dwell on web browsers, but, i figure, anything we can learn/share that makes our flying life easier....

2. are you arranging things on orbitz and getting ff miles? maybe i am confused, but i thought that tix bought through orbitz, travelocity, etc., did not qualify for ff miles??


I think you're thinking about Priceline. Orbitz and Travelocity sell "normal" tickets, same as an in-person travel agent.

Easiest way to figure out what's going on is to call US Res and give them your exact flights, have them price the itin out. If its coming up lower, then you know for sure the website is being dumb; If its coming up high just like the website had said the res agent should be able to give you a reasoning why and you can pick different flights so you can book it online. ^ The routing you had seems totally legit as SFO-ORF requires a connection in one of the hubs no matter what.


So I did just that, called GP res, and the agent was able to come up with the right flights, including the layover, for $212 + $5 fee. So, I called the website support to see what they could do for me. Sure enough, it prices out at $985. "Thats just the way the website works, it can only price this trip as one-ways. Your choice, book with us for this price or through phone reservations for the $5 fee".

On a side note, I did come up with an interesting way to beat the $5 fee of Expedia, Orbitz et al -- book through United.com. For some reason they didn't have every USairways flights in their system (and I'm talking about regular US flight numbers on US metal) but I was able to cobble a decent routing together that prices as $5 less than Expedia.

What do you think, am I better off booking my trip on the website and trying to fly standby on the earlier ORF-PHL flight OR should I do it on the phone for $5, and request DM to give me an extra 1000 miles because the website was unable to book?

... and I love the search by price.

search by price rocks! as far as i know, this one feature is way ahead of all the other airlines.

i suppose that is the frustration w/ USAir. they have a number of things that they do far better than anyone else, to the level of sheer genius (US1 perks is another one, if you can get to that level)... but then they have limitations that make one wonder if they will survive... or what their coverage will be when they are retooled into survivable configuration... e.g., they dropped Toledo, which was sad for me....

I think you're thinking about Priceline. Orbitz and Travelocity sell "normal" tickets, same as an in-person travel agent.

I was reading Rules for Earning Miles #3 on http://www.usairways.com/dividendmiles/programinfo/programrules.htm

US Airways and/or any Dividend Miles airline partner, at its/their discretion, may also exclude certain types of paid tickets from credit eligibility. These include, but are not limited to: unused tickets, travel industry discounts, tickets purchased at websites like priceline.com and hotwire.com, charters, back-to-back tickets, tickets obtained or used in a fraudulent manner and any other fares/tickets that may later be specified by Dividend Miles, with or without notice. Miles accrued for any of these reasons may be subsequently deducted from the account.

so, it is not 100% obvious from all the legalese, if ya know what i mean....

generally, i buy tix on the US website, and don't often look at orbitz, etc.... and when i have, it has been for flights to place US does not go.

although, u r right, i do recall that my DL tix bought on Orbitz were "real tix" that got FF miles.

So I did just that, called GP res, and the agent was able to come up with the right flights, including the layover, for $212 + $5 fee. So, I called the website support to see what they could do for me. Sure enough, it prices out at $985. "Thats just the way the website works, it can only price this trip as one-ways. Your choice, book with us for this price or through phone reservations for the $5 fee".

On a side note, I did come up with an interesting way to beat the $5 fee of Expedia, Orbitz et al -- book through United.com. For some reason they didn't have every USairways flights in their system (and I'm talking about regular US flight numbers on US metal) but I was able to cobble a decent routing together that prices as $5 less than Expedia.

What do you think, am I better off booking my trip on the website and trying to fly standby on the earlier ORF-PHL flight OR should I do it on the phone for $5, and request DM to give me an extra 1000 miles because the website was unable to book?

That definitely IS unfortunate that the website is f*$&ing up that bad; the worse part is that there's nothing that website support can do to help. Whenever I have had a problem I get one of two answers, "that's just how it works, sorry" or "i'll have this escalated" and hear a click.

One interesting point, how were you trying to select the flights on usairways.com, searching by price, by schedule with SFO-ORF as the cities, or by schedule using each city pair? If its the 3rd option it may be why its faring as two one-ways. There's no dispute when searching by price but the limitation exists when you need to mix fare classes to book a ticket.

Post your dates flight#'s if you want and we'll see if there's a way to get around the website gremlins.

Regarding the $5 fee, if there's a booking engine that will give you the flights that you want, then pay the $5. Unless you can get usairways.com to book it the 1000 miles isn't in the picture.

-JC

One interesting point, how were you trying to select the flights on usairways.com, searching by price, by schedule with SFO-ORF as the cities, or by schedule using each city pair? If its the 3rd option it may be why its faring as two one-ways. There's no dispute when searching by price but the limitation exists when you need to mix fare classes to book a ticket.

Post your dates flight#'s if you want and we'll see if there's a way to get around the website gremlins.

-JC

Searching by price works (in general) but my problem is that when I do that, it doesn't present me with the return flight combination I want -- the one that gives me a 3.5 layover in PHL -- it only shows the departure 2 hours later that has a 1.5 hour layover. When I try to search using city pairs, it should be able to use T class (which is available on all flights) to combine them into the SFO-ORF fare but it prices as oneways instead.

If anybody can figure out how to get USAirways.com to book these flights for the right price, you'll win a prize.

December 3 US 784 SFO-CLT 10:45 pm -> 6:21am
December 4 US 716 CLT-ORF 8:10am -> 9:16am
December 4 US 2750 ORF-PHL 10:40am -> 11:44am
December 4 US 29 PHL-SFO 3:15pm -> 6:27pm

Searching by price works (in general) but my problem is that when I do that, it doesn't present me with the return flight combination I want -- the one that gives me a 3.5 layover in PHL -- it only shows the departure 2 hours later that has a 1.5 hour layover. When I try to search using city pairs, it should be able to use T class (which is available on all flights) to combine them into the SFO-ORF fare but it prices as oneways instead.

If anybody can figure out how to get USAirways.com to book these flights for the right price, you'll win a prize.

December 3 US 784 SFO-CLT 10:45 pm -> 6:21am
December 4 US 716 CLT-ORF 8:10am -> 9:16am
December 4 US 2750 ORF-PHL 10:40am -> 11:44am
December 4 US 29 PHL-SFO 3:15pm -> 6:27pm

It can be done if LGA is good enough. Planning a party in ORF, or just segments? If LGA is OK, do schedule search, keep clicking More Returning Flights... i see the MR priced for 292.40 on USairways.com.

Good luck.

It can be done if LGA is good enough. Planning a party in ORF, or just segments? If LGA is OK, do schedule search, keep clicking More Returning Flights... i see the MR priced for 292.40 on USairways.com.

Good luck.

No party in ORF, just taking advantage of the $173 RT fare from SFO for a MR. No need for segments. I can get SFO-CLT-ORF-PHL-SFO for $212.20 on USAirways.com. So if I add in LGA it raises the price by $80... worth it? Probably not.. but thanks for the suggestion!

One thing that I did notice being an IT guy and things...

When pricing the flights out via the website, the final selection for the PHL-SFO segment's "Continue" button actually calls a MULTI_OW function, which I would take that to stand for MULTI-OneWay which this adds up correctly as the fares show:

SFO-CLT TE141QN
CLT-ORF TE141QN
ORF-PHL BA7
PHL-SFO SR7BSSN

Seems the website may be forcing it to price it as-is rather than letting the CRS price the fare automatically. Hence, when you call Res their system auto-fares it and gets the correct fare.

Still playin to get it to price. :)

-JC

Also, why not just take the earlier ORF-PHL flight then standby for the 315P flight? You still have the 6P flight incase by some chance they can't get you onto a 321.

Or...

US1708 ORF-PHL 1245 149P E70
US29 PHL-SFO 315P 627P 321

... and standby for US2750 (the 1040A flight). You may pay $25, but this is giving you some extra time with your friends in PHL, gives you the routing you want, and gets you the 1000 mile booking bonus. Heck, you may even be able to sneek by the $25 standby fee.

-JC

Or...

US1708 ORF-PHL 1245 149P E70
US29 PHL-SFO 315P 627P 321

... and standby for US2750 (the 1040A flight). You may pay $25, but this is giving you some extra time with your friends in PHL, gives you the routing you want, and gets you the 1000 mile booking bonus. Heck, you may even be able to sneek by the $25 standby fee.
-JC

Thanks JC for your help, that will likely be my plan. I hope I'm able to sneek by that $25 fee, we'll see....

Thanks JC for your help, that will likely be my plan. I hope I'm able to sneek by that $25 fee, we'll see....

No problem. I'm 50/50 on standby fees being waved so good luck! I had mentioned having the 315P PHL-SFO confirmed just incase you're trying to upgrade - let the transcon get confirmed and the other flight vary.

-JC

I know we've been told that improvements are on the way, back button functionality is a start, and I love the search by price. What I don't understand is how US can compete with the other carriers who allow much more complex arrangements (see the Continental implementation of itasoftware for example). I know, I know, we're in ch. 11 so just staying in the air is the most important thing. But driving customers to this channel for their purchases (by charging a phone reservation fee) when it is inadequate won't really help keep those planes full no matter how cheap the fare.
I keep hearing a small voice in my head....."I will not post on this thread......I will not post on this thread.......I will not post on this thread..... I will not......" :p

So I won't. Just sign me off as Bored in Birmingham. :rolleyes:

I just bought a one-way US Airways LGA-DCA shuttle ticket for the Sunday after Thanksgiving for $98.40 on United.com. The lowest price available at the exact same time on usairways.com? $241.60. I ask (rhetorically): why is there such a big difference in price for the same flight? (The low fare was also available on orbitz.) :confused: