krentzie

Going EWR-DEN and the one outbound flight I was gonna take shot up to 1,034 RT. Assume it will come down at some point.

Can I book the whole trip with other flights and just cancel it before 24 hours after I book it and then do the same thing the next day and so on and so on until the flight comes down?

So basically I will have a ton of cancelled reservations within the 24 hour window of when I booked them.

Often1

CO's software will pick up on this, likely after the second booking/cancellation cycle and simply lock you out. That means either they simply don't want you as a customer any more (their option) at least for a while. See that you are Gold -- not sure how your scheme affects FF, but if it does, CO can also cancel that account

Also, make sure you have enough credit available on your card(s) to handle the overlapping holds / charges / credits. In other words, when you book the first round, a $1,034 pending charge holds that much credit, it will become a charge within 24-48 hours. CO will then issue a credit for $1,034 when you cancel and that should post in 2-3 days (although there are complaints on FT that some banks are slow about posting credits). In the meantime, you will have booked another $1,034 fare, "using" that much more credit. Sooner or later, it will all zero out, but you may be carrying as much as just over $5,000 before it does.

Yoshi212

Would be much easier, with minimal cost, to use the hold feature CO has. Pay the 29 dollars or whatever it is, to hold the ticket price for 5 days.

qoodoo

No point and they would catch on eventually...sit tight for the right price.

Red_Rob

Previously when you could hold a ticket until midnight the following day I used rolling holds for >30 days. Of course that never charged the card.

I have for legit reasons (on again off again meeting) rolled purchases with the new policy for around 4-5 days. However as it is no longer midnight but actual 24 hours I have missed canceling within 24 hours before, so you can get "stuck" with a ticket you are not sure you wanted. I could probably fare lock 20x for the price of 1 missed cancelation.

Another option besides fare-lock is to look at the lowest refundable ticket. Often you can get a refundable B (or on some routes M) fare for around that price.

UA-NYC

Try LGA-DEN for 1/2 the price?

krentzie

thats actually what I booked but I just changed it cause the EWR route dropped. Still $60 over LGA but still worth it for me to go from EWR