Originally Posted by
fastair
How about you find the cheapest itin that you plan on using as you purchased. I mean UA plans to fulfill their end of the agreement, why don't you? The train suggestion works. Honesty and honor should be wroth something to you, or if you are not concerned with what is ethical, then the open jaw seems to be popular, but I don't advocate dishonesty....that is, unless you feel that you should also be defrauded whenever possible, at which point, what goes around comes around in the world of karma.
I know this has been argued countless times here before, but I just can't resist. A foundation of capitalism is that the seller can choose how to price the product, hoping to maximize return, and the buyer can choose which product to buy, hoping to minimize cost. If UA is crazy enough to price the product so that two legs are cheaper than one, they have to expect the customer to exploit that at least occasionally by flying only one leg. If I leave a football game at halftime, or throw away a half-eaten box of cereal, does the seller have the right to argue there's an ethical violation because he priced the product presuming full consumption?
And by the way, UA doesn't _always_ plan to fulfill it's part of the bargain. They overbook, and occasionally have to pay a penalty to the pax. They call this capitalism and shrewd load management, not poor ethics.