loopflyer

Paid ticket asking on UA website: SEA-SFO-ICN-HKG in UA F,F,and OZ J priced at $9,600 and change. On Expedia: $3,470, same class, day, flights routing, airlines!! I got a 80K F saver award for this route and seriously question the value of doing so. Wish I would have done better research. Stunning difference. The expedia price btw is lower than many J fares from West Coast to HKG!!!

transportprof

Expedia is my go to source for good value on J fares, particularly those itinararies that combine *A carriers. I'm typing this from Madrid, where I booked a LH/AC tatl ticket for one-third less than either airline was offering directly. I think the secret is that Expedia's software can match discount J buckets up on different carriers that their own search engines won't/can't reveal.

mozilla

What is the flight date(s)?

I can reproduce similar pricing differences for various dates, but on Expedia it always puts me in domestic F for SEA-SFO and then on to Business for SFO-ICN instead of First, although I explicitly selected First as search filter. When I query UA.com the pricing is indeed much higher but unlike Expedia it actually includes SFO-ICN in F.

hockey7711

Do you still get pqd if booking on expedia?

eng3

I was going to ask the same. Make sure it doesnt end up as a bulk fare

jonsail

I am puzzled about why airlines, hotels, and car rental companies let others sell their product for less than they do. Your post is a good reminder that loyalty to a company as expressed by buying directly from them is sometimes not rewarded but penalized.

mozilla

I hope OP will respond to the questions on this topic.

I understand that Expedia may offer fares that are a few (tens of) dollars cheaper vs. direct bookings, but I would be surprised to see that they can go as much as >$6k cheaper than UA.com for the same itinerary. Screams "too good to be true" to me, and I was unable to reproduce this for various dates.

I did find similar pricing differences, but those involved different classes (with Business class being offered while Expedia's First Class filter was active - which required extra clicks to uncover the (quite hidden) fact that it wasn't First Class). UA nor OZ have currently filed a SEA-HKG F fare that even remotely matches the price OP is offered, so that makes me extra curious as to what Expedia has constructed (maybe combining two OW's?).

Kacee

Probably an end-on-end construction on separate tix.

loopflyer

The construction is this: 7 July 2017: SEA-HKG: UA F, F via SFO $2,917 and then separately 8 July ICN-HKG: OZ J $547. It was searched yesterday.

MSPeconomist

Are you sure it's FC seating on the TPAC SFO-HKG segment and vv, versus business class on the long haul segments with only FC on the domestic connecting flights?

milepig

What are the flight numbers? The flights I saw on Expedia as F are actually only F for SEA TO SFO and J on a 2 class 777 to HKG.

I can never find the exact fare string on Expedia, but it can't be F as the plane is 2 class. There is a route with F/F on .com for 11K but that isn't the one I see being priced on Expedia.

I had to click through to the seat selection window to see the chart before I realized it wasn't actually F.

loopflyer

Yes, it was F and F on the UA segments, including the TPAC 747 - F. Again, it was searched yesterday and today it might be different. I searched it yesterday 3 times to see if it was indeed true what I saw.

loopflyer

UA flts. 368, 893 and OZ 745. 7 July, 8 July respectively.

findark

It's a split ticket connection, caused by a really low +$600 differential First fare filed on SEA/SEL. I can't get Expedia to show it to me anymore, but I can reproduce manually, faring as [adding the /UPDI for clarity]

SEA UA X/SFO UA SEL 2805.00PFW0OUMD/UPDI NUC 2805.00 END ROE 1.00 XT 18.00US 5.60AY 80.00YQ 9.00XF SEA4.50 SFO4.50
SEL OZ HKG 511.48UKOKS NUC 511.48 END ROE 1153.503 XT 25.00BP

$3,470.60 o/w a/i, books into A/A/U

PFW0OUMD/UPDI is not combinable so you can't plate this on a single ticket. All risks and moral/legal arguments about using split ticket connections to save $6,000 by circumventing tariff rules apply.

mozilla

Thanks for doing the hard work in reconstructing this fare, great job . Also impressive of Expedia to come up with this, it seems they developed a pretty advanced algorithm.

Not being protected for the connections, I assume? I'd also guess that Expedia will not warn the potential purchaser of the risk, with the usual "I will never fly United again"-result if said purchaser effectively misses the connection?