bhunt

Last Saturday needed to book a last minute trip to Nashville to sign some papers and come right back.

First looked on United app and cheapest fare was 9/21 OMA-ORD-BNA and 9/22 BNA-ORD-OMA for $568.

I always check Google flights to see United is in the ballpark with other airlines.

They had following flight for $318 all on United flights.

9/21 OMA-ORD-BNA 9/22 BNA-IAH-OMA.

What was wierd when google flights directed me into united website it booked the following way.

9/21 Outbound OMA-ORD-BNA(overnight)-IAH. Return 9/22 IAH-OMA.

Is this a legal way to get cheaper fares or just a one time glitch? Bonus made upgrade list on 3 of the 4 flights.

jsloan

Both. It's unlikely to happen frequently, but there's nothing wrong with doing it. Without looking, it probably priced as OMA-BNA + BNA-IAH + IAH-OMA, and that happened to be cheaper than OMA-BNA / BNA-OMA, probably because the morning IAH-OMA flight was empty.

Kacee

Although the UA website should do that as well.

AirbusFan2B

Yes, if anyone has seen a fare on UA.com lower than on Google, that would be news. Vice-versa does happen.

jsloan

Sure, but the UA search engine isn't the best... and it looks like there was a difference in what was requested on the two sites, since Google Flights came up with an option departing on the same day as arrival. (misread)

bhunt

Only thing I requested was roundtrip oma-bna

Depart 9/21 return 9/22

whitethunder

happens to me a fair bit when booking an itin with a segment on AC (ie united site shows united options which are a little pricier) then google shows same itin but first segment is on AC and its cheaper

jsloan

OK, but that's not what Google Flights provided you. I mean, I'm glad they found you a better price, but I'm really confused why they'd think that returning late on 9/21 is the same as returning on 9/22. (misread)

threeoh

All of the itineraries posted here have the return from BNA on 9/22.

jsloan

Oops, sorry, you're right; I misread the original post.

Taking that into account, I think that this is a probably a case of UA not revalidating married inventory when performed as a multi-city search. BNA-IAH and IAH-OMA probably had inventory buckets available that BNA-IAH-OMA didn't. United.com should revalidate after you've selected all of your flights, but it currently does not.

OP: If you'd like to try to check for this kind of thing in the future, do multi-city searches through the connection point.

garykung

I believe the flights were priced by segments. So it won't make much a difference.

Also - why not using a notary?

emcampbe

yup - I do this frequently on UA.com. It often prices out cheaper than O-D via the same flights via the same connection points. Though I’ve never seen Google flights find these when searching O-D. It can sometimes be the same price, or sometimes more expensive through. Just depends on availability on individual legs vs. married segments.

another benefit of using multi-city search on UA.com is I find often searching O-D will miss completely some standard domestic connections for certain routes. For my home city, typically via ORD, connections are missing as these have the most flights. It might try to sell me a 45 minute connection, while completely leaving a 2 hour connection out. There’s no real rhyme or reason thag I can see when it does that. Google Flights will usually see these missing connections though, and will be able to book it directly via United.com.

Weatherboy

I'm running into more and more issues where United won't sell me a seat on specific flights (even though it appears to have availability in Expert Mode) but when I run the itinerary through flights.google.com, the purchase goes through OK.

As an example, trying KOA-DEN-EWR on 11/19 for a ticket in first/business, J=5, JN=5, C=1...yet the UA website shows only economy is available whereas first isn't. But when I try to purchase the same through flights.google.com, it looks like I can buy 5 seats up-front for this flight.

When pricing out other trips, Google also comes up with lower fares than what United does ...even though it's ticketed through United.com as a single UA ticket. I was doing LAX-LHR, EWR-SIN, and SFO-HKG in Polaris and the United site wouldn't give me flights I wanted and/or it did for more than going through Google. Am I doing something wrong or is this a typical UA technology glitch?


Seems wide open, but can't book.

findark

The one in question is pretty typical.. it's getting confused between Business-marketed and First-marketed flights. Not sure why it came back today, but I saw also. Try searching for Y and then you'll see F.

DErg

I ran into this trying to book EWR-CDG-MUC-EWR over christmas. Matrix showed availability in Z going and P coming back with a fare $2k less than the lowest one United.com was showing. I just called and they were able to manually build it out and it came to the exact same fare that was showing on the matrix.