[First post! Been following FlyerTalk for years and love it! ]

Most of my personal last minute flying is from HNL (my home airport) to the west coast. I can do a bit of searching/juggling and almost always find a good fare (under $500) even with only 3 or 4 days advance notice.

I'm in DC for business. A friend and I decided we would take a quick run down to Knoxville (TYS) to see another friend. The fare was over $1000 for a 6-day advance!!

I figured the planes were booked, but after checking out the seat maps, both the outbound and the return flights were around 40% full.

As you can imagine, we are not making the trip. Does United only try to fill seats at the last minute on certain routes? Or are they still penalizing people for waiting until under 21, 14, or 7 days? I thought that went out the window years ago?