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Decoding the alphabet soup - fare buckets for UA

Old Jul 1, 2013, 9:03 am
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: WineCountryUA

Revenue buckets
J - Full Fare Business
C - Discount Business
D - Discount Business
Z - Deep Discount Business
P - Deep Discount Business
O - Full Fare PremiumPlus (Premium Economy)
A - Discount PremiumPlus (Premium Economy)
R - Deep Discount PremiumPlus (Premium Economy)
Y - Full Fare Coach
B - Full Fare Coach
M - Discount Coach
E - Discount Coach
U - Discount Coach
H - Discount Coach
Q - Discount Coach
V - Discount Coach
W - Deep Discount Coach
S - Deep Discount Coach
T - Deep Discount Coach
L - Deep Discount Coach
K - Deep Discount Coach
G - Deep Discount Coach
N - Basic Economy

Saver Award Inventory
IN - Elite (Plat/1K/GS) Saver Business or 2-cabin First Award
I - Non-Elite and Low Elite Saver Business or 2-cabin First Award
XN - Elite Saver Coach Award. Also available to Chase Gateway, Explorer, Quest, and United Club Visa cardholders as an undocumented benefit
X - Non-Elite Saver Coach Award

"Everyday" Award Inventory
JN - Elite/CC Everyday Business or 2-cabin First Award (may be open to all MP members )
ZN - Non-Elite Everyday Business or 2-cabin First Award (tracks to the Z bucket) (not clear if still used for award travel). Also used for buy-up upgrade offered at check-in. May be a factor in Skip-the-Waitliist availability
ON - Everyday PremiumPlus (Premium Economy) Award
YN - Elite/CC Everyday Coach Award (may be open to all MP members)
HN - Non-Elite Everyday Coach Award (tracks to the H bucket) (not clear this is still used)

Upgrade Inventory
PN - Y/B/M 1K Instant Upgrades (CPU eligible routes only); All GS sponsored upgrades Y->J (CPU, PlusPoints, miles)
PZ - Upgrades to Polaris Business, United Business, or United First (excepting GS sponsored upgrades and 1K Instant Upgrades)
RN - Upgrades to Premium Plus

Points earning for all upgrades is based on the originally purchased fare. Also see below.

Upgrades Note that upgraded flights will post to your MileagePlus statement as Z(X) where the second letter (X) is the original booking class. The parenthetical letter defines the earning rate for the flight as points are earned based on the original booking class.


How to read inventory numbers:
Why does J8C5D3Z0P0 mean?
The zero inventory is easy to explain, UA is presently unwilling to sell tickets using inventory in that fare class.
Does J8C5D3 mean there are 16 seats for sale? No -- there are just 8 available seats.
Inventory in a fare class is not additive but the lower fare classes are subsets of the higher fare classes
If UA sells / upgrades 1 seat in the premium fare class, the Inventory will like change to J7C4D2.
The J inventory is the total number of seats for sale in business/first. While C,D,Z, P ... are the number of seats UA is willing to sell in those lower fare classes
Going back to J8C5D3Z0P0, if you want 4 seats on a single PNR, you will have to purchase C fare, as there isn't enough inventory for D fare for everyone on the PNR and everyone on a common PNR must have the same fare class / fare basis.

In some cases, if a lower cabin is oversold, UA will then block, remove from inventory in the higher cabin to protect against the oversale.
Note the largest number for a UA fare class in public displays is 9 (some airlines limit to just 4), this prevents revealing too much information to the competitors or the public.

Award and upgrade inventory are also subsets on their respective cabin inventory

Management of inventory and maximizing revenue is the role of Revenue Management (RM), a highly secretive, proprietary operation of the airlines -- So inventory changes (within the physical limitations of the aircraft) will be dynamic and can change without notice as determine by RM

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Decoding the alphabet soup - fare buckets for UA

Old Mar 4, 2019, 4:31 pm
  #31  
 
Join Date: Oct 2013
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Anyone know which buckets are still eligible to purchase upgrade to business/first? Couldn't find the answer via search.

Having to book a long haul RT for work via Concur, but they make us book Economy which is usually booked at T. I want to pay my own $$ to upgrade to first, but need to make sure I don't book a class that will NOT be able to do so.

Mahalo
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Old Mar 4, 2019, 4:47 pm
  #32  
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Anything that isn't Basic Economy can be upgraded to First (or Business) with cash upsells and/or changes. A strict corporation with a corporate TA will probably never book BE.
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Old Mar 5, 2019, 10:06 am
  #33  
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Programs: United 1K
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Originally Posted by StuckinITH
It's not the upgrade option. R is a discount fare for the new Premium Plus class.

If you are 1K, you can see that it's PZ0. GS would have the option of upgrading directly with an instrument as it's PN5.

Or if you were referring to the "available fare classes" showing, did you just set your account to Expert Mode?
No, I meant I never see the "Upgrade available" or "Upgrade waitlist" signage in my search results, even when there is fare availability. I wasnt sure if there was some setting I hadn't checked or something.
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Old Mar 5, 2019, 10:09 am
  #34  
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Originally Posted by beeasyed
No, I meant I never see the "Upgrade available" or "Upgrade waitlist" signage in my search results, even when there is fare availability. I wasnt sure if there was some setting I hadn't checked or something.
You'll only see those if you specifically search for upgrades using advanced search. But I don't really recommend it -- it doesn't work that well.
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Old Mar 5, 2019, 12:15 pm
  #35  
 
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Originally Posted by beeasyed
No, I meant I never see the "Upgrade available" or "Upgrade waitlist" signage in my search results, even when there is fare availability. I wasnt sure if there was some setting I hadn't checked or something.
Oops! Sorry I gave the wrong answer but somehow I'm not able to see "Upgrade available" or "Upgrade waitlist" signage in what you attached in your post.
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Old Mar 29, 2019, 8:59 pm
  #36  
 
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If one sets expertflyer to notify for: I - Non-Elite and Low Elite Saver Business or 2-cabin First Award

Will it include "IN - Elite (Plat/1K/GS) Saver Business or 2-cabin First Award"?
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Old Mar 29, 2019, 9:29 pm
  #37  
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Originally Posted by elbejt2
If one sets expertflyer to notify for: I - Non-Elite and Low Elite Saver Business or 2-cabin First Award

Will it include "IN - Elite (Plat/1K/GS) Saver Business or 2-cabin First Award"?
No. IN availability is only available from United directly, so if a flight is IN > 0 but I = 0, EF will not see it.
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Old Mar 30, 2019, 5:10 pm
  #38  
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In my experience, IN == I pretty much always. It's X and XN that don't tend to map equally.

Has this changed recently?
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Old Mar 30, 2019, 5:24 pm
  #39  
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Originally Posted by helvetic
In my experience, IN == I pretty much always. It's X and XN that don't tend to map equally.

Has this changed recently?
Somewhat, it has gone from always, to now, much of the time -- meaning, there are times when IN>I. And it is worth checking for -- not soley trusting EF I alerts which worked well in the past.
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Old Jul 28, 2019, 6:47 pm
  #40  
 
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So a question for folks: I see that there is First Saver availability on NRT-IAH on 3/10/20 on NH metal, where O>0. However, when I look up NRT-ORD (also on NH metal) on the same date, I see that O>0, but there is no First Saver availability available. Is this a bug that UA has not fixed as a result of implementing fare buckets for Premium Economy?
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Old Jul 28, 2019, 7:02 pm
  #41  
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Originally Posted by PsiFighter37
So a question for folks: I see that there is First Saver availability on NRT-IAH on 3/10/20 on NH metal, where O>0. However, when I look up NRT-ORD (also on NH metal) on the same date, I see that O>0, but there is no First Saver availability available. Is this a bug that UA has not fixed as a result of implementing fare buckets for Premium Economy?
How are you looking them up? Award inventory doesn't appear on codeshare flights. It's not a bug, exactly, because the codeshare flights can't be booked as awards.
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Old Jul 28, 2019, 7:31 pm
  #42  
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Originally Posted by jsloan
How are you looking them up?
Yeah I don't know any way to get NH native award inventory numbers. The best you can get is EF and various award booking engines, which will just tell you if awards are available.

EF says zero O on NH12 on 3/10/20

Obviously UA codeshare inventory is a completely different animal.

Last edited by Kacee; Jul 28, 2019 at 7:37 pm
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Old Jul 28, 2019, 8:07 pm
  #43  
 
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Originally Posted by jsloan
How are you looking them up? Award inventory doesn't appear on codeshare flights. It's not a bug, exactly, because the codeshare flights can't be booked as awards.
I looked them up first by paid fare, then by award availability. I would imagine both NRT-IAH and NRT-ORD are both UA/NH codeshare, even though both of the flights I was looking at were on NH metal.
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Old Jul 28, 2019, 8:20 pm
  #44  
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Originally Posted by PsiFighter37
I looked them up first by paid fare, then by award availability. I would imagine both NRT-IAH and NRT-ORD are both UA/NH codeshare, even though both of the flights I was looking at were on NH metal.
If the search result says UA 7917 or whatever, that's a codeshare, and the inventory numbers don't mean anything with regard to awards. If the search result says NH 917, it's not a codeshare, and the inventory numbers are meaningful.

Based on your description, it sounds like the former. O class in those search results refers to a paid Premium Economy seat, not an award.
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Old Jul 28, 2019, 8:38 pm
  #45  
 
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Originally Posted by jsloan
If the search result says UA 7917 or whatever, that's a codeshare, and the inventory numbers don't mean anything with regard to awards. If the search result says NH 917, it's not a codeshare, and the inventory numbers are meaningful.

Based on your description, it sounds like the former. O class in those search results refers to a paid Premium Economy seat, not an award.
Got it. I searched it again, and it appears that paid tickets show up under the UA codeshare, but award tickets show up only under the NH flight number. Kind of a sneaky little tweak that I did not know existed previously, and (IMO) a bit strange to show up on a route that is supposedly revenue-neutral for UA/NH.
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