copa does have brief sales, but you have to have your dates already planned but not booked, etc. In my case, this usually means I have already bought the ticket elsewhere, or I am not sure on my travel dates yet and cannot risk getting into the change fee game.

Copa has been merciless on exploiting pricing power on other routes (PTY-MDE was 600 rt for a long time, of which only ~200? was tax, for a 400-mile flight), but I just don't see where they are getting the leverage on these routes. That said, it seems indisputable to me that they no longer actively modify their pricing to match the prevalent US carrier fares on their routes which I follow. (used to you could almost watch them follow United from one day to the next). This isn't just on routes with one destination in PTY, seems to apply to 2-flight tickets as well.

i will add that the FF program separation is an added area of concern - not sure if they will match my UA status to start but at the rate I find them bookable, even backing in additional miles earned on longer flights (at 2c/mile even though I have not seen real availability/reward pricing for copa's program), I cannot see how I will ever match that level for the 2017 period, much less exceed it.

As far as for whom it makes sense to pay 600+ pty/mia rt vs. 300ish AA, I have no idea.

I guess in summation - copa feels they have a model at present where they only rarely need to compete on price with US carriers on their routes, finding it more useful to retain premium pricing even if they only sell a fraction of tickets at that cost. A secondary issue impacting me may be that LAS seems much less often discounted than some of their other north american routes.