US Airways Dividend Miles - Web fares vs Phone fares....big difference??

A $200 transportation voucher that was issued to me last year is close to expiring to I decided to find a cheap flight for myself and my fiance to NYC. Looking on the web, I found a roundtrip price (direct) for about $330 on the US Airways website which seemed reasonable enough given the short notice.

So I called US Airways to purchase this ticket and apply my transportation voucher only to be told by the agent that the price was $768!!! :confused:

I asked her why there was such a big discrepency between the web fares and phone fares and she just gave me a scripted answer to call back later and try again and hope fares would be cheaper :mad:

What's worse is that I have no other way of using my transportation voucher except by calling in. What is the point if they more than double the prices vs the web prices?!?!?

Is this common practise by US Airways and other airlines? Have others had the same experience when trying to use the transportation vouchers?

Any insight would be appreciated

Thanks!

FWIW, yes, I've had the same experience over at AA (not on a voucher, but booking via phone) - sometimes the webfares are cheaper than the fares available to the phone reps for some reason. :td:

Looking on the web, I found a roundtrip price (direct) for about $330 on the US Airways website which seemed reasonable enough given the short notice.

So I called US Airways to purchase this ticket and apply my transportation voucher only to be told by the agent that the price was $768!!! :confused:


At the risk of insulting your intelligence (not my intent -- I'm the guy who's lamp won't go on b/c it's not unplugged) but any chance 330 was for 1 tix and 768 was for 2 incl taxes and fees?

Well, another thing you can do is to find out what fare class it's booking into over the phone vs on the web.

wow--that hasn't been my experience but let me ask everyone--if we know the fare basis, can we call up and actually request the fare basis? Do Rez agents have the ability to search by this?

wow--that hasn't been my experience but let me ask everyone--if we know the fare basis, can we call up and actually request the fare basis? Do Rez agents have the ability to search by this?

They should be able to - at the very least, you'll know that they're looking at a different fare code. You can ask to talk to a supervisor, or see if they'll call the rate desk to approve the fare. I had to do this once on a PHX-ABQ segment - the agent on the phone couldn't match the web fare (using a voucher) and had to talk to a supervisor who called the rate desk (I think that's what it was called - maybe someone who actually knows what they're talking about can tell you in better details).

Good luck to the OP, and don't take no for an answer!

There are sometimes web-only specials that are indicated by a specific icon on the website. I believe most vouchers specifically indicate that they are not eligible to be put towards these fares. Is it possible that this was the case for the OP?

At the risk of insulting your intelligence (not my intent -- I'm the guy who's lamp won't go on b/c it's not unplugged) but any chance 330 was for 1 tix and 768 was for 2 incl taxes and fees?

That was actually my first reaction as well...I thought it was for 2 people but the lady confirmed that the fare was for one person. $330 was inclusive of all taxes and fees