Originally Posted by
findark
I've never typed this in to SABRE or equivalent; when in the entry do they key in the basis (if you know)? I always use segment-by-segment with booking codes and let it auto-price, thankfully "same booking code but higher fare basis" is rare enough I haven't needed to do it yet.
I'm not 100% sure, so I'm hesitant to go on record.
I
think you'd do it by constructing the entire record using the fare codes that are required by the fare basis you'll request, and then, instead of auto-pricing, you'd specify the specific fare basis/bases and validate. However, I've never seen it done, and I suppose it's theoretically possible that you'd want to/need to store the fare as you built each leg, since that would allow it to associate the cities with the fare at that point in the process.
None of this is something I'd want to try to do over the phone with a UA rep, though.
If I had some particular need to do this, I'd be working with a travel agent. (In fact, I'd expect any front-line agent to defer to the rate desk if I made a request like this). In practice, the only reason I can think of to do this is to increase the flexibility of a fare, and the web interface generally works well for that. Otherwise, I prefer to pay the lowest price in a given fare bucket, not a higher one.