Fare Lock pricing error
 

I purchased a 1 week fare lock on an intl BF itinerary for my wife, daughter and lap infant. I didn't realize that the first name and middle initial don't have a space between them and I was concerned that the name on my daughter's ticket was wrong since the middle initial was appended to the first name so I called up UA last night about it. Since my daughter's passport has her full middle name, the agent changed it to show the full middle name.

This morning when I go to manage the reservation there are a couple of potential problems. The price for the tickets is lower now than what the original fare lock was. It shows 2 adult tickets and a lap infant instead of 1 adult, 1 child and 1 lap infant like my confirmation email shows and the total fare shown is less than the sum of the tickets and the taxes.

If I go ahead and purchase the itinerary (assuming the system would even let me complete the transaction) could they cancel my reservation at some point in the future and leave us without tickets? Even though there is no fare difference in J for a child, does it matter if the ticket shows it is an adult vs. a child?

If I had a nickel for every time I got a pricing error on UA's site....

The site does not like when you make changes to reservations that are pending. Here's some of the issues I've had:

-Taxes stripped out on the confirmation screen
-Pulling mileage upgrades from someone else's account before ticketing yields a price that says something like "$0.00 and 221 miles"
-Using cash from TravelBank sometimes yields the wrong price on screen

In all those cases, I've always been charged the right amount for the ticket on my credit card.

Could it be that the actual fare has gone down (for everyone)for the flight and it's giving you the benefit of the lower fare?

How much lower are you talking a reasonable amount or something silly like it went to a dollar a ticket?

No, I checked the fares again today and they aren't any cheaper and this is really in the too good to be true category. If there was a way to pay the proper amount on the website, I'd do that, but I don't particularly want to call in and be on the phone for who knows how long trying to get it straightened out.

Not quite a dollar a ticket, but less than $1000 for a TATL in J. Not something that seems like a legitimate fare.

You are probably seeing a display bug and you will probably be charged the correct price.

That being said, if you *try* ticketing online, and you see the right price on the "complete your purchase" screen, it *might* work. More likely the system will reject the price as incorrect and either it will never ticket or it will ticket after 8 hours and you'll be mysteriously charged the correct amount.

If it does work and if UA issues you tickets for all passengers at a particular price, they probably won't come after you for more money later.

1. It is normal for the middle initial to be attached to the first name, so no worries there. For example, John T. Smith could be displayed as Smith, JohnT.

2. If the present price is lower than the fare lock price, just cancel the fare lock and buy at the current price.

I finally got the issue resolved after almost an hr on the phone this morning. When they changed the name on my daughter's ticket to the full middle name instead of the her initial to match the passport, I lost the fare lock on the 2 paid tickets and it only kept it on the lap infant ticket.

Since I couldn't generate a receipt and I knew the total was supposed to be thousands of $$ instead of hundreds of $$ I called while I was still in the original 7 day window. I didn't want to risk having to pay $>10k sometime down the road for the tickets since I knew it was a little TGTBT. Since the fares have since gone up by about 50% :eek: and the fare lock was gone, they had to go through the revenue department to get me the original fares and it took a while, but they resolved it to my satisfaction.

I wish I had remembered the agent's name I spoke with because she was one of the most polite and helpful people I've spoken with in a while.