Last March my relatives needed a return flight for their vacation and I offered to book it using Plan B. The rest of the trip was set in stone so they could only fly SLC-Maine on Thurs 13SEP18 with the best schedule: noon departure with a short connection. I figured UA would open up Saver space on one of the 3 options within a few weeks since Sept is shoulder season. I started monitoring prices for fun twice a day as I’m sure many of you do.
Well initially I was right; UA opened a single seat via EWR in early April. I booked it and no, another did not magically appear. I cancelled and continued patiently waiting. For months. I waited so long they actually
changed the pricing system by the time 3 Saver seats via EWR appeared in late August. Of course, that was just inside of 21 days so I had the privilege of paying 50 bucks to use my miles after waiting an eternity. Well, at least it beats paying full price. But after all that work, my relatives didn’t even clear SLC-EWR! So maybe I should have splurged…
Award Pricing
img
Award Pricing T-7 Days
img
Revenue pricing from Google Flights (forgot to monitor BGR!)
img
Raw Data
Some thoughts:
Award availability can be incredibly dynamic, with prices changing up to twice a day. With that being said, award prices appear to track revenue pretty darn closely (as we suspected), staying fixed when revenue are fixed and generally moving in the same direction.
I only looked at expanded space (XN/YN). Just imagine how bad regular space would be! In fact, there was no I space on any routings period (e.g. via SFO) until late August and I space didn’t open on a favorable route until DoD (ORD-PWM).
Surprisingly, the longer routes (SLC-EWR/ORD) had XN space pretty consistently. The shorter EWR/ORD-PWM segments did not. While I realize the segments are married, that was likely the problem.
UA can be very stingy with award space, particularly with prime flights. Great for RM, bad for us. They do tend to lower fares/release seats closer to departure, as one would expect due to spoilage. The really didn’t open the floodgates (saver on all routes) until t-7d and even then it was sporadic. There was some saver space on DoD but that’s not a waiting game I want to play, considering some routes zeroed out completely for T-2/3d before coming back for the grand finale.
The pecking order of routes is fixed, much like with revenue tickets. For whatever reason, SLC-ORD-EWR commanded a premium over the similar routing via EWR. And BGR was consistently the highest priced route, maxing out for the majority of the period. The loads (at least to me) did not appear to be that different based on seat maps and inventory.
Plan B is a lot harder to do domestically due to GS CPUs and elite RPUs. The common refrain is “you’ll be
#1 on the upgrade list” but that’s far from true on some routes. In this case they were
6 and 7! As an aside, I had another failed Plan B last month DCA-SFO where they were actually
#1 and 2 but only one seat avail and taken by a cash upgrade. I knew that route would be tough (once a day perimeter TCON).
With a low fare of $147, I would have been much better off paying cash here. But I didn't pay 12.5k miles for a coach ticket, I paid 25k miles for the chance at a first class ticket (compare at $453), which is a rational choice IMO. And it's still a nice gift (although F would have been better!).