Originally Posted by
Changeup2000
I believe fare bucket is archaic. With the advanced IT, airlines should be able to distinguish every ticket from a flight and attach different sets of price and rule to it. However, since it is well established and widely used in the industry, I do not see it to be replaced anytime soon.
You're underestimating the total number of flight combinations that could be sold. When you consider possible partner airline flights, there are likely billions of possible combinations daily. There's another reason to keep fare buckets, or something like them: people value flexibility. If I buy a W fare, I know that I can change to another flight with W availability for no charge, as long as all of the fare rules are met. And if I buy a roundtrip flight and want to change only the return, the advance purchase rule -- usually the most onerous -- is waived.
Originally Posted by
findark
In reality they do not. Fare tables (the non-inventory based part of reservation pricing) change quite rarely, and affect all flights on the covered citypair. Inventory is how UA controls the price of a specific flight based on that flight's load.
Well, with the exception of the continuous pricing nonsense that they've started.