Hey Hawaii Flyer --

I am not at all confident your situation will improve. UA is doing some funky things for XMAS travel to other holiday destinations. Just look at LAX to OGG (Maui) on Dec 26-Jan 2. Only M fares, giving a r/t price of $3K for coach. I've tried dozens of other cities from the continental US, and every combo to OGG yields crazy high fares thru LAX on any of the 3 nonstops. It has been this way since the day tickets went on sale 4 months ago (and yes, I have checked nearly every day for 4 months). Every competitor has been consistently below UA since seats went on sale, although the gap has narrowed a bit as others have filled their flights.

From what I can tell, only a handful (fewer than 10) of coach seats have been sold on the 3 nonstop UA flights. The only explanation that makes reasonable sense is the majority of the seats are tour block seats whereby the entire flight looks empty but was presold from day 1.

This has pushed people (myself included) to book standard coach award seats and/or pay a bit more for first class seats. Good strategy for UA if they want to encourage paid revenue upfront, but I can't wait to see how they sell so many coach seats at high prices.

Take a peek at the LAX to OGG flights on the Dec26/Jan2nd and let me know if this looks similar to your issue. I'd recommend booking standard award seats.