Originally Posted by
t18c97
That's what I'm seeing, wasn't clear in my original post, sorry.
If I try to book 1 person it's 155K miles for a business everyday award (which it's been the past when booking these same flights before COVID hit) but when I change it to two then it goes to 240K miles, also for a business everyday award. Guess where I'm confused that both segments show JN9, which I thought that was to include no blockage on the everyday award level if you have the Chase/UAL credit card.
If there were an inventory blockage issue, then when you tried for two people, it simply wouldn't give you a result.
In this case, UA hasn't published any parameters for how they handle their variable pricing. It may be tied in some manner to the underlying inventory, but there are a
lot more pricing levels than fare classes, so whatever their process is, it's more complicated than that.
I suspect what you're seeing is that they're willing to sell one ticket at 155K, but not two, and therefore when you search for two people, you get the higher price. (On a single itinerary, everyone will pay the same price, even if there are a number of lower price tickets available for a smaller group).
If you purchase them separately, you can probably get one at 155K and the other at 240K. I doubt there's a way to get them both at 155K besides waiting and hoping that more inventory opens.