Deceptive pricing on connecting itineraries {workaround to married segment pricing}
Feb 3, 2014, 1:49 pm
#47
Join Date: Aug 2011
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This is different, and is a UA-originated bug related to segment availability queries.
Feb 3, 2014, 2:11 pm
#48
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And yet searching A-C prices as A-B + B-C while searching A-B + B-C prices as A-C. Go figure.
Feb 3, 2014, 2:26 pm
#49
Join Date: Mar 2012
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On Delta, too
While not on United, I have ran into this exact same issue with Delta. For those unfamiliar with the Delta site, you can search by Price or Schedule. Using the example posted, it would go PIT-IAH, IAH-PHX, PHX-EWR, EWR-PIT. For a similar itinerary on Delta, searching by Price would yield the lower price while searching by schedule would yield the married segment logic. If you attempt to book by price using the lower fare, delta.dumb errors out and won't let you book it. I have not tried calling, but have to wonder if they would honor it?
Feb 3, 2014, 2:32 pm
#51
Join Date: Aug 2011
Programs: UA 1K
Posts: 8,634
While not on United, I have ran into this exact same issue with Delta. For those unfamiliar with the Delta site, you can search by Price or Schedule. Using the example posted, it would go PIT-IAH, IAH-PHX, PHX-EWR, EWR-PIT. For a similar itinerary on Delta, searching by Price would yield the lower price while searching by schedule would yield the married segment logic. If you attempt to book by price using the lower fare, delta.dumb errors out and won't let you book it. I have not tried calling, but have to wonder if they would honor it?
Feb 4, 2014, 11:55 pm
#52
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The real problem is that this system makes 'airline logic' sense, but does not make 'logical' sense.
If a taxi charged $15 to go from your home to a restaurant via the grocery store, but $4 for home to the grocery store then $6 from the grocery store to the restaurant you'd be incredulous.
But somehow in the world of aviation it makes perfect sense. <shrug>
If a taxi charged $15 to go from your home to a restaurant via the grocery store, but $4 for home to the grocery store then $6 from the grocery store to the restaurant you'd be incredulous.
But somehow in the world of aviation it makes perfect sense. <shrug>
Precisely.
To be fair, I blame Apple. Over the past 5 years, it seems that anything on the web has been catered to the lowest idiot, because that's what sells. We're in an era where simplicity is favored over complete information. So United can rightly say 'oh, we're making it simple for consumers'.
We KNOW what they want.
We will tell them what they want.
And we will only give them what we tell them they want.
(Who does that sound like?)
To be fair, I blame Apple. Over the past 5 years, it seems that anything on the web has been catered to the lowest idiot, because that's what sells. We're in an era where simplicity is favored over complete information. So United can rightly say 'oh, we're making it simple for consumers'.
We KNOW what they want.
We will tell them what they want.
And we will only give them what we tell them they want.
(Who does that sound like?)
The article to which this click-bait points is more fairly titled on the original blog. And sadly, this entire episode has made me devalue the credibility of the blog. It isn't only UA that can be claimed to have devalued something.
Feb 5, 2014, 1:48 am
#53
Join Date: Apr 2000
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Why on earth are we wasting time with this thread? This has been known about for years (it was already the case with pmUA). It's only deceptive for people who aren't prepared to take the time to dig around with different ways of searching. Perhaps sbm12 has only just discovered how to game the system, but I and others have posted about this periodically for many years.
Feb 5, 2014, 1:56 am
#54
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Why on earth are we wasting time with this thread? This has been known about for years (it was already the case with pmUA). It's only deceptive for people who aren't prepared to take the time to dig around with different ways of searching. Perhaps sbm12 has only just discovered how to game the system, but I and others have posted about this periodically for many years.
Feb 5, 2014, 7:58 am
#55
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I would be incredulous if you could convince the driver, once at the grocery, to complete the sale, settle the fare, not drive away, wait while you were in the grocery, the let you get back in the car, restart the meter, then take you to a restaurant. This could result in the fares cited in your fantastic analogy, but the taxi driver would not give you that choice.
I recently had a taxi driver in a tourist destination (slow season, cabbies desperate for fares) make a proposition remarkably similar to the one you consider "incredulous". In effect, he preferred to wait the 30 minutes or so while I was shopping, meter (and engine) off, rather than burn fuel cruising around with the cab "herd" in the hopes of finding another passenger when few were to be found.
Feb 5, 2014, 11:21 am
#56
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I would be incredulous if you could convince the driver, once at the grocery, to complete the sale, settle the fare, not drive away, wait while you were in the grocery, the let you get back in the car, restart the meter, then take you to a restaurant. This could result in the fares cited in your fantastic analogy, but the taxi driver would not give you that choice.
Just like I can convince even the stingiest airline to divorce married points by buying A-B-A and B-C-B tickets on the same airline that align to the A-C through B married points itinerary.
Originally Posted by emcampbe
Did you really mean that this was already the case with PMUA, or did you mean PMCO? IME, and not that it was very frequent, but I did sometimes use the multi-search method on the PMUA site, and the price was rarely, if ever, different than the point to point price. Which meant, at least in my examples, it was properly using married segment logic to price the fare as point to point in a multi-city search.
There were plenty of PMUA tricks to reducing fares (back-to-backs, throwaways, hidden cities). But this was not one of them, IME.
Feb 5, 2014, 11:47 am
#57
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You can also get the opposite situation where the multi-city search results in a higher price than the standard search. It's always good to look at both, but it's not like you will always get a cheaper option using multi-city searches.
Just had this on a search DEN-SCE. The DEN-ORD-SCE-ORD-DEN search resulted in a $595 fare while the standard DEN-SCE-DEN resulted in a $525 fare. Same flights.
Just had this on a search DEN-SCE. The DEN-ORD-SCE-ORD-DEN search resulted in a $595 fare while the standard DEN-SCE-DEN resulted in a $525 fare. Same flights.
Feb 5, 2014, 2:47 pm
#58
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: LAX and LHR. UA lifetime Gold 1.9MM 1K , DL Gold Medallion, HHonors Gold, Marriott Gold, Avis President's Club
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Did you really mean that this was already the case with PMUA, or did you mean PMCO? IME, and not that it was very frequent, but I did sometimes use the multi-search method on the PMUA site, and the price was rarely, if ever, different than the point to point price. Which meant, at least in my examples, it was properly using married segment logic to price the fare as point to point in a multi-city search.
Feb 5, 2014, 4:25 pm
#59
Join Date: Mar 2010
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Same experience here. This was a known anomaly on PMUA that I would use on all my connecting itineraries. I never really thought of it as deceptive but I see how it could be interpreted as such.
Feb 5, 2014, 5:25 pm
#60
Join Date: Dec 2010
Programs: UA MP
Posts: 768
Indeed - what happens if you have IROPS? If you want to go A-C but you buy a multi-segment A-B, and B-C. Let's say A-B is late (or worse even, A-B is cancelled and UA re-routed you A-D-B, arriving at B much later), what's UA's obligation to get you to C? Are you effectively a no-show for B-C because you booked multi-segment?