LifeTimeBronze
Jul 24, 12, 12:28 am
Just trying to organise my daughter to visit relatives in late August and I notice that the cheapest Y fares are with UA LAX-DEN.
There are a host of AA flights during the day. Only 1 shows up and it's an extra $645. Yes, it's a later flight but she would have lounge access whereas none with UA.
Why is QF doing this? How did they get a better deal from UA rather than partner AA?
Anyone got any clues.
Thanx.
MarkXS
Jul 24, 12, 12:42 am
Just trying to organise my daughter to visit relatives in late August and I notice that the cheapest Y fares are with UA LAX-DEN.
There are a host of AA flights during the day. Only 1 shows up and it's an extra $645. Yes, it's a later flight but she would have lounge access whereas none with UA.
Why is QF doing this? How did they get a better deal from UA rather than partner AA?
Anyone got any clues.
Thanx.
As somebody living in the mountains outside of Denver while reading this as I'm having a Facebook convo with an Aussie who sometimes teaches skiing here in Colorado, literally right now, debating Qantas vs UA vs other airlines for longhaul...
AA doesn't fly real planes between DEN and LAX. Only BarbieJet JungleJet RJs. Maybe Qantas is taking pity on you?
QF can interline and ticket any IATA airline, and the UA SFO hub to DEN hub is on normal mainline narrowbodies. With once in a blue moon, mostly for repositioning flights or maintenance, a UA widebody.
Obviously separate alliances, you won't earn QF or other oneworld program or other QF-partner miles for the UA leg, and you won't earn UA or other Star Alliance program miles for the SYD-LAX QF longhaul. But as most-comfortable-routing, it makes sense. If it's on a single ticket, single itinerary, you're still protected in case of misconnects, through baggage, the new IATA Resolution 302 baggage charge rules (as amended by US Dept. of Transportation regulations).
I normally wouldn't ever be in this forum at all, except that I wanted to browse some QF info for this convo in my other browser tab :-) The DEN comment caught my eye. Hope this helps.
UA is pretty awful these days, BTW. But mainline is still nicer than JungleJet.
Jorgen
Jul 24, 12, 1:53 pm
I checked a few random days and there's no consistency -- sometimes the cheapest option is AA, or UA, or Frontier; sometimes it's via LAX and sometimes it's via DFW. Just the luck of the draw on your particular day, I guess.
I have no idea why there'd be a $645 variation in prices on a route which usually costs ~$US300 return, but airline pricing algorithms be crazy. :D