Originally Posted by
iflyuaaa
hmm, my last ticket i bought through my corporate amex was bulk. it was a pain. i coudln't do any changes or anything when i called UA. so i'm trying to figure out what made it bulk. when i asked them, they said "you kept asking for a cheaper price, so we found this magical corporate discount fare" which sounded exactly what was described above. so i'm still scratching my head trying to understand.
I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say "you kept asking for the cheapest price". Who did you book the ticket through? I work for a giant company..there's nothing magical about the discounts..the travel agency doesn't do any searching for lower prices. They're negotiated..we've got them on AA, DL, UA, WN, and some foreign carriers... we have one travel agency we use for booking and I have to go through an interface called Concur to book..I pick my flights through that and the agency tickets what I've chosen (or I can call them for a more complex itinerary..for a higher booking fee). There are no bulk fares.
Now... if you book through an agency and then try and change your ticket directly with UA they may refer you back to your agency to make changes..that is quite common (unless it's the day of the flight for an SDC, during IRROPS or after travel as begun)..perhaps that's what you encountered. In fact in some cases they'll charge a $50 "ticket takeover" fee to assume the ticket from the travel agency and then make changes. I've never been charged that as a 1K..but I know others who have. Delta and American also do this for travel agent booked tickets..quite annoying.