What it sounds like happened is UA opened (a) lower fare bucket(s) than were being sold when you purchased.
If your original ticket an unrestricted ticket, you can cancel/refund and repurchase or call an agent and see if they'll refare/reissue into the new fare (likely attached to a lower fare bucket but not certain) and refund the residual to the original FOP.
Originally Posted by
JCrew7384
I get supply and demand, but doesn't that seem like a misrepresentation and false advertising of the price and number of seats and price of remaining seats?
I can see why that would seem to be the case but the leagalease in the contract of carriage (and fare rules) give wide latitude. Specifically contract of carriage rule 4(E)
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...iage.aspx#sec4
E. UA may limit the number of Passengers carried at any fare level and certain fares will not necessarily be available on all flights. The number of seats which UA shall make available on a given flight will be determined by UA.
Fare rules have similar language. At the time you purchase the ticket for whatever reasons United decided that they were only making available 2 seats at full-fare available for purchase. Between then and now, something happened (maybe a group canceled...or someone in UA revenue management decided to swipe left rather than right, or an aircraft change, or... for all we know) that caused either the fare for the bucket you purchased to go down [not typically that wide a swing for full/unrestricted fares IME] or opened a lower bucket.