Argonaut1000

When using the ITA softare site and selecting flights using business class, the booking details (summary) for the flights would likely be displayed as a J or J1234 fare. But when you look at the individual flights codes it displays them as being C class. C class on Air Canada is a discounted business class code which is also shared with upgrades. Why would the fare summary be quoted as a full fare J while the individual flights be displayed as a discounted C class?

Thanks to SeattleFred for revealing the hidden features on ITA.

925

Bump for a great itasoftware thread

MrAOK

buried in a thread on the United web site is an incredibly good tip at using ita to check out runs.

so here with full credit to lucky9876coins it is:

Once you've determined your best destination and price, go to the ITA site: http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/prego .

Since you want to fly as many segments are possible, try some test dates and something like:

Quote:
From: SEA:: o:ua o:ua o:ua+ /f bc=v|bc=q
To: NYC:: o:ua o:ua o:ua+ /f bc=v|bc=q


Of course, replace SEA, and NYC for whatever cities you want. This will do a search for flights on UA metal, at least 3 legs each way (add another o:ua for 4+ legs), in classes V and Q only (these are always the cheapest two that qualify). (Note from MRAOK: replace ua with your carrier if you don't want united)

If the price you get is much more expensive than what you got in travelocity, try a weekend or month-long search. Notice however that there's a bug and you won't be able to get to the flight list in this way; but you will be able to see which dates are cheaper, so then you'll have to do a search on those days.

Finally, you won't be able to book this using united.com (unless you're extremely patient AND lucky), so you'll have to call united reservations and insist until you get an agent that knows how to book a MR.

nor4

Just want to verify: Are you saying that V and Q are the cheapest fares that can be used for a multi-city MR? Other cheaper fares can be used for some MR. Please clarify. Thanks. And thanks for dredging this up, very useful.

DeltaFlyingProf

I was using the ITA software to try to build something out of BKK. I am trying to go to DEN in C class, but the fare to DEN is over 500$ more than to LAX for example (return) on DL. So I was wondering if there was a way to specify that I want a Y connection from LAX by doing:

From: BKK:L+ LAX /F BC=Y
To: DEN:: /F BC=Y LAX DL+

This returns absolutely nothing. Is there a way to do this correctly? Is the ITA software not capable of specifying fares per segment? Or is combination with a Y fare really not authorized?

SeattleFred

Try building your itinerary as a multi-segment trip. You can specify the booking code for each segment (although you don't need to specify a bc for Y):

Segment 1
FROM bkk::dl dl /f bc=c
TO lax

Segment 2
FROM lax::dl+
TO den

DeltaFlyingProf

Initially, I had selected "Business class or better", hence my /F BC=Y
I have now tried your suggestion trying to connect through SEA (or LAX) and it still is the same frustrating result.
BKK-LAX/SEA is only 1715$ and BKK-DEN is 2327$ in Y and 2400+ in C/F between DEN and LAX or SEA.
I guess I should just buy two tickets. One ways between DEN and SEA are very inexpensive (140$ each way) and I'll save over 400$ for some short flights anyway.

Explore

Just tried to find a fare for LHR-IAD-BOS-LAX-SMF/SFO-LHR with UA on ITA. It gives me W class availability throughout, but when I call United and quote the entire fare basis code, no dice. United.com has shown no W class on LHR-IAD for hours, ditto for UA phone reservations, but ITA still has it. Why? How long does it take ITA to update its info?

berkeleyguy3

It's hard to say what exactly is going on in your case, but I've run into this very same problem myself. I've gotten several MR's to price out without problem on ITA, and United agents / UAL.com can't book them, despite my seeing plenty of availiability in the fare buckets I want, even using more advanced tools like Apollo/Worldspan.

My old theory was that this problem just had to do with ITA's availability just having a lag time vs. United's internal availability, but now I think it may have to do with the way ITA deals with availability on so-called married segments.

There's a thread HERE that gets into the problem of married segments on MR's. An example of this might be: UA has a W fare published from LHR-BOS, and a W fare published between LHR-IAD. Inventory management may decide that it doesn't want to sell any more seats for travellers flying just the LHR-IAD segment, so they set the availability for the flight you want to W0:

LHR - IAD.............W0......


However, they still might want to sell W seats for LHR-BOS, specifically on the routing LHR-IAD-BOS. If this were the case and you searched for LHR-BOS, you would see something like:

LHR - IAD.............W9......
-> IAD - BOS .......W9.........


So, for the very same flight number on the very same day, W may or may not be available depending on what connections are/are not made. This is married segments at work. Based on my own experiences, it seems like ITA sometimes may marry segments differently than United. For example, United's system may not marry the LHR-IAD and IAD-BOS segments, and therefore not see the availability, whereas ITA's system does. (Although in my case the problem was usually the other way around; ITA didn't marry segments whereas united did).

I don't know what advice to give you more than what's in the linked thread. I've occasionally succeeded in booking these tickets through a combination of persistence and luck, but I don't quite understand why I've managed to make it work.

gary_nj

This may not add much to the discussion, but I have been having my own problems lately with united.com not finding itineraries accessible on ITA. I am trying to book a NYC-BUD-SFO routing. In my case, I use the multi-city search on united.com, so I see that there is V availability across the entire connection outbound and return (so I think the married segment thing is OK), I read the fare rules for each (and I think I meet them), I check that the V fare is offered on that date on that route, and yet united.com prices it as Q in one direction and H in the other.

I hadn't tried calling yet, since I am not buying just yet... But I was figuring that it was just some united.com bug that would be worked out on the phone. Sorry to hear that you are running into problems on the phone... now I am less optimistic!

gary_nj

Responding to my last post... before disparaging ITA or United, I need to disparage myself... I called and spoke to a United agent, who showed me where I was missing something in the fare rules.... Problem with gary_nj, not with ITA or United.... Sorry!

raehl311

blah, wrong screen. Please delete.

Palal

Wirelessly posted (Opera/9.51 Beta (Microsoft Windows; PPC; Opera Mobi/1718; U; en))

Thanks for bumping the thread.

MatthewLAX

I had this thread bookmarked. It should be a sticky!

IAN-UK

I thought premium cabins were excluded from searches other than those for specific dates .. ?