Copa pricing vs UA/AA
 

Mainly fly LAS-PTY but also some MIA and MSY in there. over the last 6 months finding it very hard to price copa at less than a 50% premium to either UA or AA or both. Often copa is 100%+ more - even head to head with AA on pty-mia.

I assume over recent years more of copa's customers are going to/from brazil, and that this changes how they can value/price segments, but it has been a frustration to find that not only are they almost always the high price las-pty, but often they are 100% higher than their 2 main competitors.

There was a time not too long ago copa actively matched/competed on price on the routes I use (particularly las-pty), and apparently they just aren't anymore. I am beginning to get the same feeling I usually do when I check WN's fares - still remember them almost always being lowest but now often they are nearly double their competitors, at least in the markets I would use them for.

Am I the only person puzzled by copa high pricing on direct routes from the US to PTY? Once their FF program starts, for platinum/1k members, in theory, a good bit of price difference on, say, las-pty might get made up in mileage, but for MIA-PTY, even a 1k ff will only get a relatively trivial mileage difference vs. UA, and (at present) AA is on the mileage-based reward miles system still.

I have only encountered once out of a dozen trips in the past 12 months where Copa had a lower fare vs UA (LAX-PTY). Most of my Panamanian colleagues share the same sentiment and fly UA almost exclusively. I personally find the on board services great, but not great enough to make me want to pay the extras.

You're not alone. There has been discussion on and off in various threads on this topic over the last year. I was a 1K mostly through CM until this year, but I have not flown on CM since last May.

My company's travel policies only let me pay $100 more than the lowest cost carrier and it was getting more and more difficult to find a CM routing that met the requirement. And this is not on PTY flights where CM least has the advantage of offering non-stops from the USA vs. their competitors. My flights are from Colombia, so I always have to connect in PTY when flying CM.

copa does have brief sales, but you have to have your dates already planned but not booked, etc. In my case, this usually means I have already bought the ticket elsewhere, or I am not sure on my travel dates yet and cannot risk getting into the change fee game.

Copa has been merciless on exploiting pricing power on other routes (PTY-MDE was 600 rt for a long time, of which only ~200? was tax, for a 400-mile flight), but I just don't see where they are getting the leverage on these routes. That said, it seems indisputable to me that they no longer actively modify their pricing to match the prevalent US carrier fares on their routes which I follow. (used to you could almost watch them follow United from one day to the next). This isn't just on routes with one destination in PTY, seems to apply to 2-flight tickets as well.

i will add that the FF program separation is an added area of concern - not sure if they will match my UA status to start but at the rate I find them bookable, even backing in additional miles earned on longer flights (at 2c/mile even though I have not seen real availability/reward pricing for copa's program), I cannot see how I will ever match that level for the 2017 period, much less exceed it.

As far as for whom it makes sense to pay 600+ pty/mia rt vs. 300ish AA, I have no idea.

I guess in summation - copa feels they have a model at present where they only rarely need to compete on price with US carriers on their routes, finding it more useful to retain premium pricing even if they only sell a fraction of tickets at that cost. A secondary issue impacting me may be that LAS seems much less often discounted than some of their other north american routes.

Yup. Same PTY-CTG. I find it really difficult to believe all the pax on those flights are paying $600+ for an economy RT, which leads me to suspect that they are selling heavily discounted seats through other channels, such as local travel agencies.

After seeing very high prices on Copa ex-MEX last year (and leading me to take my business elsewhere), our fortunes have improved this year. We've been getting good deals to a few key destinations -- notably PTY (booked one trip for Aug at $190), BOG (often available ~$250 now), and MDE (booked one when it dropped to just $175). There have also been other good deals to deep South America, like MVD which is currently available on some dates for $349 ai.

That said, Copa used to be competitive MEX-Central America, but no longer -- GUA/MGA/SAL/SJO are not even close to fares on AV/AM/Interjet.