FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Options / purchase timing for Summer 2024 Scotland trip
Old Feb 19, 2024 | 1:21 pm
  #42  
findark
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Originally Posted by gfunkdave
Clearly I have much to learn on fare bases. I just looked at the itinerary in Matrix and it actually shows the flight as just $1457, booking into Q class. On united.com the $1600 fare books into V class. If I tell united.com to use Q, it comes up as $1620.
For international fares, Basic Economy uses the same booking codes and so Matrix will show you the lowest (BE) fare by default. The $1,457 price is Basic Economy (-LGT fare type). Regular Economy costs an extra $90 per direction, and prices like this (note the -NCV fares and $90 price increase):



There are two complicating factors to your search on the United website.

The first is that the outbound flight does not have V inventory. To make life more confusing, United has started a program where it will sell fares without valid inventory by taking the "true" prevailing price and discounting it: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...iscussion.html

In the below example, United offers a $6 discount from the published Q fare to book into V class and be bound by the rules of the V fare. This price cannot be replicated on Matrix or any other GDS, but NDC systems like Google Flights will show the price. However, it is normally a relatively nominal discount ($6 on about $700 here).


Second, your account seems to have access to private fares, maybe through Break From Business? The private designator on your search /B405 and similar indicates you are seeing lower, private fares which are unique to your MileagePlus account. That is why your prices are very slightly lower than the ones I see.

Last edited by findark; Feb 19, 2024 at 1:26 pm
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