AZ Travels the World

Looking at a flight later this week, PHX-SNA (Santa Ana/Orange County). It's a US operated flight.

Fare on usairways.com is $231 refundable economy; $305 refundable First. Fairly typical close-in pricing for US on a route like this.

Fare on aa.com is $461 refundable economy; $609 refundable First. Literally double.

On the routes I fly most in the west ex-PHX, I see large disparities between the AA and US website prices all the time. US is always the lower of the two, frequently by a large margin like this.

I'm starting to be afraid of what's going to happen when the res system migration occurs later this year and usairways.com goes away.

It's hard to imagine that what AA is marketing will prevail, as prices won't even be in the range of the largest head-on competitor in the PHX market -- Southwest. If so, it will surely instigate a quick drawdown of the PHX hub. Some are predicting that anyway, but surely this wouldn't be the way to do it.

I know there are some fairly informed folks who participate here. Any sense of why they're doing this and which pricing approach is likely to prevail?

makfan

I don't know what will prevail either, but if my last several trips are any indication I like US pricing better. Have been enjoying connecting in different hubs lately. I have bought several I/P/A fares on US that were acceptable and earned lots of EQPs.

ashill

The fact that it's exactly double made me suspicious, and I checked to confirm:

US.com is showing the one way fare (inclusive of taxes and fees, of course) on the first screen, while AA.com is showing the round trip fare on the first screen. On the second screen, for each flight, AA.com will show "included" if it adds nothing to the quoted round trip price or "+XX" if it's more expensive for a given return flight. The total round trip fare is $461 for flexible coach on both sites.

I do prefer showing the per segment based on round trip purchase price, but not such a big deal. I do see the argument for showing the round trip fare up front for cases in which the per segment fare isn't available as a one way. (Pretty sure that $231 fare is available one way in this particular case, but that's not true for all fares.) Also, taxes and fees can sometimes be different for a round trip than a one way, so it's occasionally more accurate to list the round trip price from the beginning.

jordyn

If you're buying a round-trip it's more transparent to show the price of a round-trip flight. Sure, it's nice to know the individual segment prices as well, but AA is telling you the price of the trip you asked for at the start of the process rather than having you choose what may look like a good deal as a first leg only to get sticker shock when you get to the return flights if availability/pricing is different.

AZ Travels the World

Well that would explain it, now wouldn't it? No wonder all the prices look so high.

While reasonably savvy on the US side, clearly I'm a rookie at AA with a lot to learn. Thank you for the clarification.

More often than not, I'm comparing one-way pricing, which tends to track pretty well on the two sites. It's must be these occasional round-trip itineraries I look at that are looking so much higher to me on AA. I don't think I've yet purchased a ticket at aa.com, so I've never seen the way the round-trip pricing is handled on the next screen. That will change soon enough.

Generally speaking, the approach on the AA website is so different in so many ways from that on US. (Not that US is the shining star, by any means.) I have yet to understand how mileage postings to my account work. Lots to learn. . . thanks again. I'm sorry for the confusion.

ashill

At least one way fares are cheaper than round trips!

iplaybass

I thought the rule is to book on the operating carrier, not the codeshare until the operations are merged.

RogerD408

Yes, especially if you're looking for upgrades. But if the $s are significant, the upgrade may be passed up. We now have two websites selling the same product. It's wise to comparison shop.

makfan

Yeah, and some of my trips are best booked AA one way and US the other way, and buying one-ways on each site complicates it or increases the cost in some cases. Glad we only have a few more months of this.

makfan

I think AA is pretty clear, though the transactions are often not displayed in date order. I find US flights take a few days to post; AA flights post the next day if they depart before a certain time (which I haven't quite figure out yet). One weekend a month (usually the first, but sometimes the second if the first weekend falls very early in the month), your account will be missing things as they run their statement batch process. Everything usually shows up again by Sunday evening. This year they are having this promo where flights earn extra miles depending on length and fare, so there are extra entries for some flights.