muhakas

Is that possible? I can't make a new reservation and start fresh b'c the affordable fares are gone.

Thanks!

fastair

I'm unfamilliar with the fare lock (saw the press releases, but don't know any if the ins/outs.)

I would hope the answer is "no" (not that I wantto spite you, just as an employee and shareholder it seems on the surface to be a bad thing for UA to do from my persective.) Isn't that like buying insurance after your house burned down and the policy had already expired? I don't know of too many actuarials that would calculate that as a "win" for the seller of the insurance.

dhelman

I don't know either, but I'd **presume** that you could buy it within the 3 day farelock, and if you need to, cancel within 24 hours as per the standard policy, so that might give you an extra day beyond the three you paid for.

boss315

If you fare lock there is no 24 hr cancel

muhakas

The website and the agent I just spoke to said that the 24-hour flexible cancellation policy do apply even with farelock.

golfingboy

True, at the same time, I wonder what is the % of fares that were locked, but eventually expired? Also fare locks does take out real inventory, so if there is a good fare, but only 3 seats and one customer fare locked a fare at that price, then the fare expires and the customer did not purchase it then that means one less customer flying on the cheapo fare.

My gut tells me that probably more than 60-70% of the fare locks end up expiring and that means free money for UA.

It is hard to measure whether it is a good program for UA on the macro level without any statistics on hand. I agree with you that giving the option to extend fare-locks should not be an option, the ability to lock a fare in the first place is already a sweet deal IMO, especially for people like me who needs to check my work vacation schedule and follow up with some people before I can actually commit to a trip.

uwr

That is true. I had to do that earlier this month.
It is required by federal law to allow cancellation within 24 hours of ticket purchase.

bsmnsr

[QUOTE=uwr;18652276It is required by federal law to allow cancellation within 24 hours of ticket purchase.[/QUOTE]

I didn't realize it was law. Congress protecting the consumer? Who'd have thunk it???

fastair

It was part of the airlines attempt in the early 2000's to hol off regulation. Airlines came up with a "customer committment" that addressed most of the concerns Congress had (well, that the passenger rights lobbiests brought up.)

The airlines self imposed these rules on them (also to tell, if asked if the flight was overbooked and a few other things.) Notsure that a promise to Congrss makes it a federal law, as it worked an held off the regulation. It may be a consent decree or something, but I am 99% certain that no law was passed by both the hous and senate and then signed by Bush. We may be splitting hairs here, but as for it being a law, I don't think it is, but it was promised to congress, so it has some meat to it.

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...omerfirst.aspx You should be able to google "Delta/American... airlines customer committment" to find similar things on each of the network majors.

Edit: Well, it somehow was codified as 14 CFR §259.

WineCountryUA

not strictly "a law" but a DoT regulation

Note at the same time, the airlines were required to show the true ticket price up front.