dcpdxtrans

DL/AA are 50% cheaper in Y (and 30% in J) if you are connecting through GRU or GIG. If you are terminating in those cities, UA remains competitive. For some reason, the addition of a leg on a Brasilian airline is making UA prices skyrocket while DL/AA are what one would expect.

MSPeconomist

Does UA publish a through fare for the route you need?

qfrodo

It depends on your flexibility and whether you are willing to make multiple connections and spend time in an airport. I booked a flight later this month for VIX-IAD. Routing is VIX-SDU-GRU-ORD-IAD-GRU-SDU-VIX. Most connections are 2 or 3 hours, but the last one is 8.5. The cost was under 2500 dollars for Business/First on the UA flights. If don't have flexibility or are not willing to do the multiple connections and possible longer connections, then you are likely right, prices are crazy.

dcpdxtrans

When I fly, it's two stops, most. Even when buying tix for others, I would not subject them to that kind of routing!!! Tix I am looking at are $1950 in Y on UA and $1230 on non-UA. It is kind of shocking that UA would be so non-competitive in Y and to a lesser degree, J. For when I fly, I do not like AA but I do like DL's hard and soft product. UA is about to lose out on significant business...

dcpdxtrans

Yes, this is the issue (if I understand the meaning of through fare, which means from point A to a desired point B). UA does publish this fare.

For this fall and winter, prices are 50% higher in Y (30% in J) if including the mandatory additional leg intra-Brasil. I thought perhaps there was price gouging in Brasil or something related to high gas prices. Not so. Prices were what I expected for intra-Brasil flights on Brasilian airlines.

SO, I priced out on UA tix not including the additional leg and they were what I expected. When I included the additional leg, an additional $750 for Y on UA even though a stand-alone RT on Brasilian airlines was $160 tickets! Crazy.

SO, I checked other airlines, i.e., DL and AA. Including the mandatory leg, their prices were $700 less than UA! Stated otherwise, adding Non-Partner Airline to UA Increases Ticket by 50% compared with AA/DL.

MSPeconomist

I'm not sure we're communicating well here. You're interested in a (RT) ticket USA-GRU-XXX or USA-GIG-XXX, where your destination XXX is a smaller airport in Brazil. (It's not your question, but have you checked fares if you transfer from the international GRU/GIG airport to the smaller domestic airports in Sao Paulo or Rio?)

When you look at the fare calculation for a dummy booking, is USA-XXX pricing as a single fare component or does UA want to write the ticket with a broken fare, so that you're really paying for one fare from USA to GIG or GRU and then a second fare (as if you were purchasing a stand alone ticket separately, but apparently on the same PNR and with the same ticket number in this case)? In other words, does UA publish a fare from USA to XXX (as a legal routing)?

To me, the price difference you're seeing looks suspiciously like a full fare domestic ticket for nonresidents of Brazil.

Depending on whether XXX is an international airport, does UA by chance publish a fare with a different routing from the USA to XXX, connecting in some other country? UA might not have a partner in Brazil that serves XXX from the international airports GIG and GRU.

dcpdxtrans

XXX=FLN, which is an intl airport. I've flown there too many times to count. I've never seen this before.

Have not. And would not.

It's a legal routing. Fare shows USA-FLN. However, I almost always get a PNR for the foreign carrier portion, but I feel like I always do.

For the intra-Brasil flight, using G3, it is showing in the A bucket (which means nothing to me as a foreign carrier). Ironically, the UA RT ticket just went up another $100 while the AA ticket went down $100. I think I'm done waiting for UA to get its act together...

*A lost presence when O6 went bankrupt. I know AD was codeshare but that may have stopped. I say that bc I don't ever see tix with AD anymore. Indeed, UA has been using G3 mostly and LA less in the last few years with no price deltas that I am seeing currently

qfrodo

Strange, I see all three domestic Brazilian airlines when I search using UA's web site. The trip I mentioned above uses Azul and it was purchased about 2 weeks ago. Azul is also a partner airlines to UA, so would be even stranger if UA didn't use Azul. Trips I made in Mar and Jan used LATAM, which I liked as they put me in premium economy for a business class purchase on UA.

dcpdxtrans

Correction, every ticket I've purchased in the last 4-5y has not included AD. Additionally, I cannot recall the last time I saw AD even as a potential connecting airline even when I knew AD had an available flight .bomb's search engine was directing to G3