deathbysegments

Could someone help me understand how United prices fares and allocates across fare classes? For instance, if my flight is showing J9, is it fair to assume that United expects J to sell out?

Repooc17

J9 indicates the availability with respect to the fare bucket. Ranging from 0 to 9 (does not go any higher), so there are at least 9 tickets available at the J fare bucket, highest in the class cabin - full fare without any discount.

malgudi

I've always wondered why they don't list the actual number ... instead of "9" as the max. Legacy software?

jsloan

Yes, although in general they may not want to publish that information even if they could.

It’s a pretty fundamental limit, though; a party of nine can buy one PNR via the website or a travel agent; you can use nine upgrade certificates to upgrade them; a Platinum or higher can guest everyone into E+, etc. Party of 10? You have to call group sales, premier benefits don’t apply, upgrades are difficult / impossible to use, etc.

It’s all tied to the same basic design principle.

BThumme

Has this functionality been temporarily removed? I can't see the buckets on the web or my phone. I re-verified I have expert mode enabled, even disabled and reneabled it, but it's not working. Can someone else comment?

EDIT: It works if I search cash fares; it does not for award searches. I swear it used to work when I was doing award searches.

WineCountryUA

Nope, it has not

jsloan

It's been several years since it worked on award searches. Originally it worked on all searches, then it was broken for a while, and then they brought it back on cash searches only.

Say Vandelay

Remember when you could see it on Flight Status pages? That was a loooong time ago.

econ

That would be a great option to have, especially on the mobile app.

Would be useful to see instrument upgrade space & SDC options, rather than having to make dummy bookings.

MBS MillionMiler

Anyone else having married segment issues when the flight starts with a 1-cabin plane?

Case in point, if I search from my home airport, which the flights invariably begin on a CRJ to ORD, and I select EWR as my final destination, the fare buckets look like this:

First segment on the 1-cabin Devil's Chariot™: Available fare classes:Y0YN0B0M0E0U0H0HN0Q0V0W0S0T0L0K0G0N9XN0X9
Connecting to ORD-EWR: Available fare classes:J0JN0C0D0Z0ZN0P0PN0PZ0IN0I0Y0YN0B0M0E0U0H0 HN0Q0V0W0S0T0L0K0G0N9XN0X9

Searching each flight individually:
First segment: Available fare classes: Y9YN9B9M9E9U9H9HN9Q9V9W9S9T9L9K9G9N9XN9X9
Connecting to ORD-EWR: Available fare classes: J9JN9C9D9Z8ZN8P5PN0PZ0IN0I0Y9YN9B9M9E9U9H9HN9Q9V9W 9S9T9L9K9G9N9XN9X9

It's not actually a married segment issue, I don't think, because when searching together, despite most fare buckets showing -0-, all 4 options (Basic, Regular Economy, Flexible Economy and First/Business) show various booking classes when clicking through (N, G, E and P, for the 4 options, respectively). Also, if I search between 2 airports where connecting as well, but on 2-class aircraft the whole way, this doesn't happen. Something's happening that united.com doesn't like when it's a 1-cabin starting flight. Also, on the return flight home, 2-cabin then connecting to a 1-cabin, it displays correctly as well.

Kind of annoying when looking for a cursory upgrade chance to see nothing when it comes to expert mode.

bocastephen

The advice has always been to look for upgrade space on segments individually from point to point - UA will price the itinerary correctly, but at least you know if you can run the upgrade request after ticketing and clear.

Kacee

R / PZ Avail changes depending on how you search flights

MBS MillionMiler

But, that was the beauty of starting/ending with 1-cabin flights. (Trust me, my home airport has been 1-cabin planes non-stop since 2001 when mainline service ended, I've been doing this for 20 years). Married segments were not an issue when looking at the forward cabin(s) since the CRJ flight has no buckets for F, J, P, C, D, PN, ZN, etc--therefore those fare buckets always displayed properly and accurately as long as it was a single connection. ...And it still does, as my post (3 posts up) indicated, everything still displays correctly on the return (including accurate F inventory) because when the flight starts with a 2-cabin plane and connects to a 1-cabin plane, it's displaying correctly. The 'goofs' are when the first segment is on the CRJ).

...Yet more egregious is that when it's a 1-cabin flight followed by a 2-cabin flight, it's showing darn near zeros for ALL cabins, and as I said above, including zeros for the multitude of fares it actually offers you (N for basic, W/V/S for economy, a higher one for unrestriceted, and a first fare, whether it be a P, Z, C, J, etc).

findark

Sounds like an issue with Expert Mode rather than inventory then?

Mixed cabin used to bypass married segment control, which could be very useful if there were suppression rules for through inventory. A good example was SFO-EWR-DCA would suppress J space if EWR-DCA was two-cabin but if taking an E45 it would use broken inventory (sadly, flying nonstop from IAD in a recliner was usually the better choice anyway).

MBS MillionMiler

Yes, definitely an Expert Mode issue. The inventory is there, just not displaying correctly. And to reiterate, it's not showing ANY fare classes for either segment when the first segment is a 1-cabin plane, on the way home where the 2-cabin flight is the first segment, it shows everything, the way it should and always has. Outbound: Y0B0M0H0V0Q0E0....etc (yet tons of availability in many fare classes), same flight search, but clicking through to the flights home, F9J9C9Y9B9M9H9V9...etc. Only difference between the 2 one-ways is one starts with a CRJ and one ends with a CRJ (with mainline or a 2-cabin RJ as the other segment in said one-way).