PsiFighter37

Different, but I am seeing sub-$600 EWR-LAX fares in the Z bucket. That doesn't seem right...might snag a couple of those, just so I don't have to fit my schedule exactly to P fares.e

ETA: noticing this is impacting BE fares on this route too (it is showing $100 higher than base bucket). Definitely something screwy going on with the tech.

lushwave

Was looking at Nov 16-18. I book this route all the time 1-1.5 weeks out. Usually its 5-600 rt. Or 700 rt for first.

jsloan

Assuming you meant October here. November 16-18 (Thu-Sat) is about $250 RT.

Currently, discount fares on that route have either minimum stay requirements -- either Friday night or a three-day stay, for most of them -- or advance purchase requirements. The M fare is currently the cheapest that has neither. The fare drops to $575 RT if you return on Thursday Oct 19 instead of Wednesday.

Often1

If a lower fare bucket is available for sale and is not showing up on the matrix, either restrict the search to that fare bucket or call UA and ask to be ticketed in that bucket. But, do check that the fare rules apply to the dates you seek, e.g. minimum stay.

I would not have a discussion about the "why" simply an ask for the ticket to be issued in whatever bucket it is.

lushwave

Yeah, I meant October.

Is this a new rule? I've never had that issue before - I always do 1 or 2 night trips, and this has literally never been a problem.

jsloan

In general, UA's pricing engine is quite good. If it's not showing a flight available in a lower fare bucket, it's almost always because there isn't an applicable fare published in that lower fare bucket. "Why" is important, but phone agents aren't particularly well trained in figuring that out. It's a better question for a travel agent or FT.

The minimum stays appear to have been added into this fare in the last month or so. If I backdate the search by a month, I get a W fare at $440+taxes.

mduell

This is not strange, or even unusual. We see this all the time in Houston and many other hub markets.

None of those lower fare classes have a fare that is eligible for your trip. Restrictions on fares can include minimum stay, advance purchase, Saturday night stay, etc; or there's no fare published at all for those classes. The lower fare buckets are open for connecting traffic (which has published fares for those classes), but the nonstop market only has E or M and above fares published.

You even agreed you understood this when you enabled Expert Mode on United.com:

The presence of a particular fare class does not mean that there is a fare associated with it. For example, we may offer availability in a discounted fare class, but that does not necessarily mean we have published a fare that corresponds to it. (emphasis in original)

Unrelated issue with BE pricing.

asquare

I have seen this on a number of flights more recently as well where there is no regular economy fare published, but there is a flexible economy published or the same fare class is available on a slightly earlier or later flight. In expert mode, all fare classes are wide open (as in the plane) though. I have noticed this mostly for flights into EWR (although I don't doubt that it probably applies to most of their hubs). Interestingly enough, if I used EWR as the center point of a open jaw trip (AAA-EWR-BBB) which I sometimes need to anyway when the most logical way to get back from BBB is via Southwest or some other airline that I do that on a separate ticket, it would price out the lower fare class, presumably through some sort of married segment logic on a stopover. Other times, it would just tell me that I couldn't book such a ticket at all which was interesting, since I could book them as 2 one way tickets, presumably none of the fare classes available that day allowed for open-jaw tickets.

When I called in, I got them to read out the relevant fare restrictions for the fare classes that wouldn't price and there are all sorts of restrictions on those classes for flights that terminated in EWR. Some of them had to do with minimum stays for round trips, but even for one-ways, I found that a lot of the time the lower fare classes were only good for certain flights (e.g. only the 6AM flight that competed with an AS flight).

findark

BE price anomaly is because UA just mis-filed.. well, someone filed a discounted round-trip fare and didn't match it.

westy12

Interesting - is something funny happening in ATL at the end of the month?

Planning a US vacation and price yesterday for Lon-Atl 27th return 16th Nov was GBP375 but nearly 900 today! Looks like we are staying in Europe for vacation!

Often1

That is most likely due to the fact that there would be very few tickets at that fare and all it takes is 1-2 tickets being sold and those are gone.

If you might take this trip if you could get one seat at GBP375 and pay the 900 for the other, consider attempting a booking for just one seat and see if it is available at the lower fare. If it is, book it instantly if not sooner and then go back in and book the second seat as a separate PNR.

3Cforme

UA and DL don't offer bargains on short-notice (lacking weekend stay) EWR-ATL. OP can fly Frontier or AA via LGA, or DL from JFK, at significant savings.

Exleftseat

I am looking for 2018 at a one way fare out of NRT to any of UA's hubs and the cheapest I find is around $ 5,000.00 in Y. DL and AA are between 750.00 and 1,000.00. Even DL PE fares are under 1,000.00. That's a big chunk of money. But compare that to a LAX-NRT one-way W fare for just
$ 500.00.
Go figure.

BackOfTheBus

I've been a UA Elite (Plat or 1K) for many years and living in Florida UA has usually been my go to airline to get me to the Colorado ski resorts (most of which are a 1-2h drive from DEN).

Last season UA even did a little seasonal expansion of flights from DEN, providing some extra flights (and extra capacity by using 738s/739s instead of A319/320s) on the routes to TPA/MCO and were also pretty price competitive with WN. Upgrades were rare as a Plat, but the EQMs and E+ made up for that. No doubt UA's costs were higher than WN's (also running 737s on the routes), but I am sure UA made up for it with ancillary revenue such as bag fees, upgrade buy-ups, change fees, etc.

Unfortunately, during the 2017-2018 ski season it has been very difficult to choose UA over WN... and even F9!

First of all, WN announced their schedules early on, with 2-3 daily non-stops on TPA<->DEN/MCO<->DEN, spaced nicely throughout the day and with a multitude of connecting options in between. Fares off peak (January and February as well as April) are about $109-119, which is very reasonable given the 2 free checked bags and no fees.

In addition, F9 has also published a well thought out schedule, with 2-3 flights a day and fares often as low as $46 (so when you add the checked bag fee, carry on fee and a drink it comes out to about the same as WN). When they have a coupon sale those fares are even a few $ lower. The disadvantage of F9 is some red eyes on DEN-TPA/MCO and of course the park bench like seats.

UA has chosen a very poor approach to the season, IMO. First of all, they were late in loading their schedule into their system, missing out on a lot of early bookings in Jan-Feb. With only 1 or 2 flights a day on TPA-DEN (not an issue on MCO-DEN) and poor flight schedules for skiers, their schedules were less desirable than WN.

UA also jacked up their prices. Whereas WN would be $109 for their flights, UA would sell basic economy (on an A319) at $109 and regular economy (which you need to buy to book E+) at $149 or $159, a 40-50% price premium! Lately UA has not even been matching WN's fares, so theirs are $144 and up with a now more reasonable premium of $20-25 OW for regular economy.

So this year UA has worse schedules - lower frequencies, aircraft (319/320) that are arguably worse than WN's 737s, noncompetitive prices - and that's all on top of a snowball's chance in hell for a FC upgrade on those routes.

So this year 2 of my flights TPA<->DEN will be on WN, 3 on F9 and 1 on UA. I just couldn't make it work on UA.

I wanted to add that UA does seem to have switched some flights to 738/739... but did so too late, after many people have already booked their tickets. Looks like they used the A319 as a schedule placeholder.

Tblack15

I've found there's a similar gripe in PHL, but mostly centered around pricing. All pricing is exactly the same YoY, but now the "same price" is Basic Economy. I can't do that as I'm checking my skis. Still have 3 trips, with at least 2 more in the works. We'll see.

I was able to grab a couple one ways when they pop up for around $130 or lower, then return on miles.

UA "has" added more flights to Montrose from IAH and ORD, but not many people want to just go to Telluride.