US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Help Me Get a 3 for 1 Ticket

I bought the idea that I'll buy a three tickets on the usairways website instead of Orbitz so I can get one free. I registered and checked out the fares page so I know there is a reasonable H fare where I need to go and when I want to go, but the website doesn't allow me to find a roundtrip H fare. It finds lower fares ($10-15) or it's an S outbound and H back (doesn't qualify for the deal) or it brings in an astronomical walk up fare. If I call the Gold desk they are able to match the fare to the reservation, but this promotion doesn;t allow that. Is there someway on the website to go from the fare you want with the restrictions you can live with to reserve flights? Or is this promotion just a come on that no one can take advantage of?

The promotion is not worth it to me. Too many hoops to jump and not worth the reward.

[This message has been edited by planeluvr (edited Feb 17, 2004).]

The only way to make it happen is find flights that don't have the lower (W,S,T,V) non-qualifying fares available but do have the qualifying fares available.

Its a real shotty way to make it happen but thats the only way that I know of.

-JC

Just fly first class to Rome 3 times and you will qualify for the free ticket. Problem solved.

The US website is really not very powerful for choosing particular fares and itineraries. A reservation agent has many more options that just aren't possible on the website. This isn't really US's fault - most of the other travel websites have the same or similar restrictions.

What makes this unconscionable on the part of US is that they have a promotion that both requires the website and requires particular fares that are difficult to get the website to price.

The website basically has three options for coach fares:
1. Choose an itinerary, get the lowest coach fare.
2. Choose an itinerary, get the lowest "unrestricted" fare (available from the "more options" page. Note that the lowest unrestricted fare may not be the lowest fare that qualifies for the promotion.
3. Choose a fare, and construct an itinerary that uses that fare.

If the entire itinerary is priced using the same fare, then you *can* buy it on the website using the "search by price" option. Unfortunately you have to click on each of the rules buttons to figure out the fare basis.

This leaves out a huge number of possible itineraries that are priced using multiple different fares, but aren't the cheapest possible itineraries within the pre-defined fare classes.

If US is going to have a promotion like this, they really need to have an easy way to find cheap itineraries that qualify.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by tw0i:
If the entire itinerary is priced using the same fare, then you *can* buy it on the website using the "search by price" option. Unfortunately you have to click on each of the rules buttons to figure out the fare basis.</font>

This used to be kinda dandy about 6 months ago before the website changes added the SID and other parameters to the URL's. When you mouseovered the "i" link for fare display it would show you the fare class in the URL. Now the URL is so long that the fare class isn't shown.

The new links:

http://reservations2.usairways.com/abs/getFareRule.do?actionType=fareRuleDetail&SID=T0005061244821217317000519127023461004&dep_arp_code=ROC&arr_arp_code=PHL&dep_dt=20040217&aln_cod e=US&fare_bss_cd=LSE21NN&newRuleWindow=false

The old links (example):

http://reservations2.usairways.com/abs/getFareRule.do?actionType=fareRuleDetail&dep_arp_code=ROC&arr_arp_code=PHL&fare_bss_cd=LSE21NN

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">This leaves out a huge number of possible itineraries that are priced using multiple different fares, but aren't the cheapest possible itineraries within the pre-defined fare classes.

If US is going to have a promotion like this, they really need to have an easy way to find cheap itineraries that qualify.</font>

Cheap qualifying fares - they exist? I haven't seen one yet. I haven't seen a qualifying fare class thats less than about $300. IF they exist, they're in very limited markets.

To me it seems that US's fly3 has some serious flaws. Although not targeted specifically it seems that the restrictions that the promo has (higher fare classes, stay restrictions, not combinable) is targeted towards a niche group of flyers.

AA released their free ticket promo first; UA came out with theirs next within a day or two. Both that seem to have a similar set of rules and qualifications. US releases their "comparable" promo what seemed a week later and the hurdles you have to go through to find a qualifying fare -let alone find one that doesnt rape your wallet- is like a slap on the face.

-JC

On the main screen, search by price rather than by schedule; a list of fares (non-inclusive of taxes) will come up; click on the button to the right of any fare for the fare code. That's how I booked my buy-3-get-1-free tickets.

I thought some people might find this useful for taking advantage of this promotion:

[note fares are generally published from city code to city code, not from airport to airport. Most web searches will take either]

Published US RT fares in Y,B,M,U,Q, or H for under $100 (excluding taxes and fees):

PBI-TPA HE14N $91.16
DDC-MKC HE0WKMN $92.09
GBD-MKC HE0WKMN $92.09
GCK-MKC HE0WKMN $92.09
HYS-MKC HE0WKMN $92.09
DUJ-PIT QE21QQN $92.09
LBE-PIT QE21N $92.09
AUG-RKD Y8 $93.02

I was able to get most of these to price out on the US website, though availability may be tight and there may also be other restrictions.

There are lots and lots of fares (well over 100) in the $100-$200 range.

Well thats definitely a good sign that cheap qualifying fares DO exist - they're just not real popular routes.

Cheapskate, good find! Keep em comin if you have more as its probably a nice help for the FT community.

-JC

USCheapskate,
How did you pull that fare data? Did you compile it manually, or do you have some tool you were able to use to pull these fares?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by jetsetter:
USCheapskate,
How did you pull that fare data? Did you compile it manually, or do you have some tool you were able to use to pull these fares?</font>

Unfortunately, I don't know of a publicly available way to search for these.

Since there are several hundred in the &lt;$200 range, I don't really think posting them here would be an option. One pattern is that a lot of them are like the ones I posted - from small airports to a hub or another small airport.