Originally Posted by
docbert
The reason this works is that you're looking for a FARE code that starts with one of those letters, not necessarily a booking code on each leg (to use Matrix's use of those terms). The fare code for the entire trip will be Rxxxxxx, which covers the booking codes of R and B on the individual legs.
No, the reason that it works is that the prime booking code for the fare is, e.g., R, The fare code actually
won’t start with R in most cases — in fact, most P+ flights are sold on a differential basis from an economy fare, like domestic First, so it’s more common to see the fares start with an Economy code (e.g., K, S, or T).
Originally Posted by
docbert
For some routes it may also be worth searching for the 2 segments separately (but on the same ticket) as it could be cheaper to book the first leg in economy and the second in PP - although as per usual United makes this difficult with various combinability rules...
You could do this on Matrix with multi-city search, but I agree that the results aren’t likely to be pretty.
Originally Posted by
docbert
Given you're looking at SFO-SYD, you'll need to be looking on/after December 3rd, as that's when PP starts on that route.
I suspect it might be seasonal as well? So there may be an end date for P+ service, at least until they retrofit some 787s.