Originally Posted by
Quaker
Z fares, P fares... I have so much to learn! Where did you get the historical data?
Are there still no fees for canceling? I thought that was over. If not, that's great to know. The issue of course with these dollar amounts is I have to use it within a year, no? Or is that just the old policy?
ExpertFlyer, a paid service, lets you view historical fare information. Since you said it had been $4000, I threw in a past date to take a look.
UA's business class inventory for paid (non-award / upgrade) tickets has five buckets -- J C D Z P, in order from most- to least-expensive. In order to buy a ticket, you need a fare and inventory in the bucket that matches that fare. What you're seeing is that UA has filed Z fares, but not P fares, so even if they have P inventory listed on the flight, there's no fare currently available that would let you use it. If they file a new P fare, and there were P inventory on the days you wanted to fly, you'd potentially get a lower price than what you're seeing now.
Correct, no fees for making changes. And, yes, you'd need to use the credit within a year, so if you don't expect that you would have another occasion to fly United, that'd argue in favor of waiting... but it's entirely possible that the fares never come down. There's just no way to know.
Originally Posted by
HNLbasedFlyer
However, Tuesday/Wednesday tend to be more off peak days and hence cheaper fare buckets tend to be more available. Specific to the Hawaii market to the West Coast, Tuesday/Wednesday pricing tends to always be lower close in to booking versus Thursday-Sunday due to West Coasters taking long weekends in Hawaii as they snap up the low fare buckets.
This. But also, it's not even necessary for anyone to "snap up" the low fare buckets. UA simply won't make them available if they don't think they have to. I've seen plenty of flights this year where inventory was a W or a V months in advance and never opened up.