This is going to sound silly but in the recent forms I couldn't find anything on this.

I'm trying to book a flight for Friday and under fare class available it has S 4 and T 2.

Now I know that T is lower than S but it's only letting me purchase an S fare. How do I get the lower T fare? Do I have to wait for them to release it?

Do I call instead of using united.com?

Any explanation would be great!

This question comes up frequently. There has to also be a fare published between the cities you're searching for that uses that fare bucket, and you have to meet the criteria for that fare (e.g. advance purchase, minimum stay, etc.)

It is extremely common to see an individual flight with fare buckets that you cannot buy because there is no fare based on what you are looking for.

Another thing that can affect this is that the airline may sell fares for a connecting pair of flights, one of which may be the individual segment you're looking at. So there could be an S fare (for example) between BOS-EWR-IAH, but only M fares offered for the same EWR-IAH flight. In this example you'd see S inventory on the EWR-IAH flight but couldn't buy it. There are huge numbers of examples of this type of situation.

I assume you mean for one or two passengers, so the T2 would be enough. But the fare basis alone does not get you a ticket. In order to get the T fare, there must also be a published T fare between your origin and destination cities (which there might not be), and you must be booking a trip that falls within that T fare's restrictions (e.g., advance purchase, Saturday night stay, etc.). In your case, either the lowest published fare is S, or there is a T but you don't qualify.

Is it just one flight segment? Is it a "direct" flight. It may not have that fare class available on both segments.

Well here's my all honesty because that's what most important isn't it

I just got a call this morning that I need to go Baltimore Friday and where I need to go happens to be around the corner from BWI so i figured I'd fly down because believe it or not it's cheaper than the train which is like 182 last check Acela Express. (Edit) Acela Express 215.00 on the return.

I was looking for coming home and I was doing the good ole Hidden City trick BWI-EWR-BOS for 148 (S FARE) instead of 232. That T fare comes up as 1.

However the BWI-EWR Segment comes up as T 2.


Any suggestions?