Originally Posted by
Often1
Why not ask your corporate travel and the corporate TA? I have to presume that UA marketed this to its corporate customers and their TA's as a cost-free (to the employer) benefit of UA. As jsloan notes, I can't imagine that a rate explicitly noted as "leisure" can't be used for leisure.
I'm not 100% sure I'd trust my corporate travel agency to know anything about this program.
But it couldn't hurt to ask.
Originally Posted by
Often1
If it's a better rate (with the exact same fare rules) as your business discount, no reason not to take advantage of it for business as well, although I would be surprised if there isn't something in the fare rules which makes the business travel bucket "better".
Here, I disagree entirely. There is no way that I would ever uncheck the box that says "business travel" and then purchase travel for business purposes. That would be a pretty clear abrogation of the contract on my part, and I can't image either UA or corporate travel would be very happy with me. (Actually, I'm pretty sure we're required to book through the Concur portal anyway, in order to show that we considered all preferred carriers). If these discounts, at this scale, are intentional, I have to think that they'd go away quickly if UA found that people were buying them for business travel.
BTW, after a little bit more searching: it seems that these fares exist through the end of the schedule, for domestic* travel, but not international. And, the discount extends to first class; I'm seeing a discount off of P fares that appears to be similar to the discount off of K fares. Unsurprisingly, requires flights operated by United or United Express; if you have, e.g., a Cape Air segment, the fare isn't available.
* UA's definition of domestic; includes Hawaii but not Guam. Does appear to include Puerto Rico.