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Deceptive pricing on connecting itineraries {workaround to married segment pricing}

Deceptive pricing on connecting itineraries {workaround to married segment pricing}

Old Feb 3, 2014, 8:27 am
  #16  
 
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Originally Posted by 3Cforme
That's an interesting set of examples. IMHO it shows that UA is not honoring its published Customer Commitment.

http://www.united.com/web/en-US/cont...omerfirst.aspx

Advise about lowest available fares
On our website, at our ticket counters and city ticket offices, or when customers call United Reservations to inquire about a fare or reservation, we will tell customers that the lowest fare we offer may be available through one of our other sales channels, if that is the case.


Since airlines offered the Customer Commitment elements in 1999 to forestall legislative requirements, this looks DOT-complaint worthy to me.

http://www.oig.dot.gov/sites/dot/fil.../av2001020.pdf
While I might agree, I sure hope no one files the DOT complaint, as the website charges normal users what they're supposed to be charged. The fact that power users can take advantage of a bug to get a lower fare by mistake is not something I want the DOT trying to fix.

Originally Posted by Kacee
It's arguably deceptive if you take into account UA's "guarantee" that you will get its lowest available fare booking on .com: When it comes to finding the lowest United fare online, we guarantee you will find it on united.com.

What they don't disclose is that their booking engine will not actually show find you the lowest available fare for a connecting route.
But see, here's the issue: it's not actually finding cheaper fares that UA intends to offer for sale. It's tricking the system into giving the customer a price that s/he is not supposed to get. On other airlines - DL, for example - married segments are a bar to using the individual-segment availabilities. I'm pretty sure that that's what UA means to be doing, but it's broken. I'm much happier this way.

Last edited by FlyinHawaiian; Feb 3, 2014 at 8:38 am Reason: multi-quote should be used
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Old Feb 3, 2014, 8:32 am
  #17  
 
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Tbbthbbbthbbth!

this post is a FT equivalent of tech-blog click-bait.

Last edited by USHPNWDLUA; Feb 3, 2014 at 8:45 am Reason: Others made the same points I did, only better. Cut to the salient point.
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Old Feb 3, 2014, 8:36 am
  #18  
 
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Originally Posted by sbm12
This is the airline screwing passengers.
Amen.
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Old Feb 3, 2014, 8:37 am
  #19  
 
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Originally Posted by mgcsinc
But see, here's the issue: it's not actually finding cheaper fares that UA intends to offer for sale. It's tricking the system into giving the customer a price that s/he is not supposed to get. On other airlines - DL, for example - married segments are a bar to using the individual-segment availabilities. I'm pretty sure that that's what UA means to be doing, but it's broken. I'm much happier this way.
Are you totally sure about this? If these trips are actually being fared out with individual-segment fares and if the fares allow end-on-end combinations into a single trip, then I think you are wrong here. Have you looked closely at this specific example?

I do agree with you that it is possible to use united.com multicity search to price out an A->B->C trip using generous per-segment A-B + B-C inventory and covering the trip with a single A->C fare in a lower fare class than is offered in the married-segment A-C-through-B inventory. But are you sure that that is what is happening here? In the fare constructions sbm12 has provided I see multiple fares covering a journey, in which case using inventory per each fare might make sense.

I haven't studied these examples deeply enough to see for sure what's up.
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Old Feb 3, 2014, 8:45 am
  #20  
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Originally Posted by mgcsinc
But see, here's the issue: it's not actually finding cheaper fares that UA intends to offer for sale. It's tricking the system into giving the customer a price that s/he is not supposed to get. On other airlines - DL, for example - married segments are a bar to using the individual-segment availabilities. I'm pretty sure that that's what UA means to be doing, but it's broken. I'm much happier this way.
Just because the broken system sometimes works to your advantage does not mean UA's "guarantee" is not misleading
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Old Feb 3, 2014, 8:46 am
  #21  
 
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Originally Posted by mherdeg
Are you totally sure about this? If these trips are actually being fared out with individual-segment fares and if the fares allow end-on-end combinations into a single trip, then I think you are wrong here. Have you looked closely at this specific example?

I do agree with you that it is possible to use united.com multicity search to price out an A->B->C trip using generous per-segment A-B + B-C inventory and covering the trip with a single A->C fare in a lower fare class than is offered in the married-segment A-C-through-B inventory. But are you sure that that is what is happening here? In the fare constructions sbm12 has provided I see multiple fares covering a journey, in which case using inventory per each fare might make sense.

I haven't studied these examples deeply enough to see for sure what's up.
These examples are a bit unusual, because the married segments seem to be forcing the individual segments into different fare classes in certain places, which is counterintuitive. But if you think about it this way, it makes sense: Sometimes when UA understands more about the context of your trip, they deprive you off availability on a particular segment thereof, in order to set the price in a certain way. That is perfectly within their rights to do, and making them "fix" this will only mean that they keep the obnoxious pricing and deprive us of the opportunity to opt-in to the lower pricing bug.
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Old Feb 3, 2014, 8:46 am
  #22  
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Originally Posted by USHPNWDLUA
These are not really the exact same flights! The fare classes are different.
Yes, the fare classes being booked in to are different. But the flights booked are exactly the same.

Originally Posted by mherdeg
Are you totally sure about this? If these trips are actually being fared out with individual-segment fares and if the fares allow end-on-end combinations into a single trip, then I think you are wrong here. Have you looked closely at this specific example?

I do agree with you that it is possible to use united.com multicity search to price out an A->B->C trip using generous per-segment A-B + B-C inventory and covering the trip with a single A->C fare in a lower fare class than is offered in the married-segment A-C-through-B inventory. But are you sure that that is what is happening here? In the fare constructions sbm12 has provided I see multiple fares covering a journey, in which case using inventory per each fare might make sense.

I haven't studied these examples deeply enough to see for sure what's up.
In this case the more expensive fares are the end-on-end options while the less expensive fares are single fare components in each direction.

Originally Posted by mgcsinc
These examples are a bit unusual...
And yet I had minimal trouble locating them. I'm not nearly as convinced that they are "unusual" rather than UA's SOP right now.

Originally Posted by mgcsinc
That is perfectly within their rights to do
Sure, but I believe it is worth raising the point that UA is not actually delivering on their advertised policy of sharing the lowest fare when searching.

I get that they think they might know better than me about my trip. But the part where I can routinely get different prices based on the type of search being performed is bad for consumers.

Last edited by iluv2fly; Feb 3, 2014 at 8:50 am Reason: merge
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Old Feb 3, 2014, 8:49 am
  #23  
 
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I tried a BWI-FAT search and if I start doing multi-flight searches and inputting hub connection points (e.g. DEN), I can reduce the price another $100+. It just seems like there is an issue (or possibly UA designed) with how connections are priced and hand holding is needed to get the lowest price. It's too bad for the consumer.
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Old Feb 3, 2014, 8:49 am
  #24  
 
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Originally Posted by Kacee
Just because the broken system sometimes works to your advantage does not mean UA's "guarantee" is not misleading
Maybe. But if I found an iPad mislabeled as $50 due to obvious employee error, I might expect to be able to buy that one for cheap, but I wouldn't expect to get 10 at that price under a lowest-price guarantee.

Originally Posted by Pingtung
I tried a BWI-FAT search and if I start doing multi-flight searches and inputting hub connection points (e.g. DEN), I can reduce the price another $100+. It just seems like there is an issue with how connections are priced and hand holding is needed to get the lowest price. It's too bad for the consumer.
No, it's not too bad for the consumer. It's a boon for educated consumers, and the original price will control of this gets fixed.
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Old Feb 3, 2014, 8:52 am
  #25  
 
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Originally Posted by mherdeg
Are you totally sure about this? If these trips are actually being fared out with individual-segment fares and if the fares allow end-on-end combinations into a single trip, then I think you are wrong here. Have you looked closely at this specific example?
Married segment logic is a technical control built into inventory of the fare buckets, not a rule or anything of that nature. United doesn't intend to allow you to book the cheaper inventory together on the same itinerary. It would be entirely possible and legal to purchase them on separate itineraries, although you'd lose protection against misconnects, etc. As sbm12 found out, there are ways to trick the United website into breaking the married segment logic (and many other rules, actually.) But the more expensive price is the only one United intended to offer and exposing it is likely to accomplish nothing except for a fix for that bug.
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Old Feb 3, 2014, 8:54 am
  #26  
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That's some serious jack-assery.

I wonder if they pull the same crap on premium tickets.

Will have to investigate.

Thanks for the heads up!
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Old Feb 3, 2014, 8:55 am
  #27  
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Originally Posted by mgcsinc
Maybe. But if I found an iPad mislabeled as $50 due to obvious employee error, I might expect to be able to buy that one for cheap, but I wouldn't expect to get 10 at that price under a lowest-price guarantee.
But isn't sbm12's point that you can consistently get the lower price if you know how to find it? And yet UA purports to guarantee that .com will find it for you. When it often will not.
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Old Feb 3, 2014, 8:55 am
  #28  
 
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Originally Posted by Sykes
Married segment logic is a technical control built into inventory of the fare buckets, not a rule or anything of that nature. United doesn't intend to allow you to book the cheaper inventory together on the same itinerary. It would be entirely possible and legal to purchase them on separate itineraries, although you'd lose protection against misconnects, etc. As sbm12 found out, there are ways to trick the United website into breaking the married segment logic (and many other rules, actually.) But the more expensive price is the only one United intended to offer and exposing it is likely to accomplish nothing except for a fix for that bug.
^^^ Thanks for being the voice of reason.

Originally Posted by kokonutz
That's some serious jack-assery.

I wonder if they pull the same crap on premium tickets.

Will have to investigate.

Thanks for the heads up!
There's nothing unsavory going on here except a pro-consumer bug.
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Old Feb 3, 2014, 9:01 am
  #29  
 
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Originally Posted by mgcsinc
There's nothing unsavory going on here except a pro-consumer bug.
Huh? The premise of FT is pro-consumer (for the most part). Isn't that why you create wiki's upon wiki's?

Seems to me that somebody is a little too interested in protecting his own private loophole. Maybe that's why this forum doesn't have a wiki on married segment logic?
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Old Feb 3, 2014, 9:02 am
  #30  
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Originally Posted by hobo13
Perhaps the most shocking thing to me is that there is one blogger who a.) still practices investigative journalism, b.) posts about it on FT! ^
You're not looking hard enough!
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