mgcsinc

Okay, fine, it's better for some and neutral for everyone else. And worse than exactly no one.

Weez_1000

It is worse for exactly EVERYONE who doesn't have the understanding and knowledge of this "bug" so they can check and see if it effects them. Ignorance is bliss, right?

WineCountryUA

As is true to numerous aspects of flying / ticket purchasing and making use of FF benefits.

mgcsinc

I think you just don't really understand the alternative. The choices are cheap tickets for some folks, or for no one. How the former is bad for everyone is completely beyond my comprehension.

Weez_1000

Like I said, Ignorance is bliss.

1P

I think there is a difference between a bug which does not work in the way the owner intends and bad programming which the owner cannot be bothered to fix; but this will lead us into the realm of philosophy. Clearly UA is not concerned that the software does not work in the way intended, as it has put up with this situation for many years.

lalalandMCI

I don't see the problem with this at all...

The difference in the prices reflects the through fare pricing, vs. the segment pricing. Also, when purchasing a through fare, only certain fare classes/fare basis codes are available, so the price will be different from the Actual origin to the Actual destination. When you break the trip, you have access to all available fare classes/basis codes on each segment, as you are essentially booking a stopover (though it is just a connection). This is one of the ways travel agencies get cheaper fares if they know how to book it.

I would argue that it COULD be working as intended... see my post above.

1P

Precisely. That's why this whole thread is, IMO, a complete waste of time. sbm12 often appears — maybe not intentionally — to put people down in a pontificating manner (not the true spirit of this forum, I believe). Here is a case in which he was clearly as ignorant as many others.

mgcsinc

^^^ Could not possibly have said it better.

LaserSailor

It's simple to understand.

Bloggers have nothing of value to offer, so they try to invent crap to generate traffic.

UA intends to sell tix at round trip prices, but multi-city pricing sometimes gives cheaper fare due to IT bug.

Blogger tries to make case that this cheaper fare is in fact the "correct fare" and ergo everyone paying higher is victim of a consumer scam. Hyperbole is slathered onto this conclusion to deflect from the faulty premises.

Accusations of FT conspiracy to keep trick quiet fly.

Best part of threads like this are the easy additions to the ignore list.

halls120

When I first read post #1 of this thread, I almost wanted to ask if someone had hijacked Seth's account.

roadkit

This is the airline trying to convince you their genius MBAs know what they are doing when they price airline flights.

It is the urban legend of airline fares -- that somehow the algorithms they use actually maximize profit for the airlines. In fact, they are so wedded to how they charge for flights, they can never be convinced they are actually idiots, and their might be a better way.

roadkit

I suppose that would be true if you could consistently go to the UA store, look at a flight, and no what it will cost. But you can't. Their magical fare-generation algorithms are too sophisticated to tell you how much it costs to fly from point A to point B. That's why one seat on a plane costs so much more or less than the one next to it.

I don;t go to the store and see cans of soup with varying prices based on the expiration date, the date it was put on the shelf, or based on whether I am buying my soup the day before a holiday.

Soup costs what soup costs. So your analogy is inapt and I DO understand the situation. So good luck with that.

mgcsinc

I don't know why you think we're on different teams here. Yes, you get it well enough that you understand the flaws in my analogy. But that's because you know too much. The people I invented the analogy for are on the complete other side of things.

Incidentally, this issue has nothing to do with normal things about air fares that people find odd. What people are seeing is the exact same flights purchased at the exact same time, etc., offered for different prices due to an error in married segment logic that can be induced by the user. So it's not a matter of different expiration dates, etc. That's why people are screaming bloody murder.

The point is that for the people o was talking to, the mispriced item analogy was a better characterization that whatever else they had on their heads.

scottsam66

I'm sorry, but you misinterpreted my post. I agree it's a bug. often1 does not.

That's quite obvious.

A few here feels it's just fine for a few to know of a bug which aids their wallet. How would they feel if there was a secret aisle at the grocery store that only a few knew about where if you backed your cart in- you got cheaper prices. They weren't in the know. Would that be fine? To know the masses were paying more for the same items! No! Makes no difference the intent or whether this was by design or "bug". Result is varied prices for same thing. It should be remedied. Apologies for the clumsy analogy, but for savvy hucksters- I'm sure you get the idea.

By the way- to those who say UA fixing the bug would help no one... I say poppycock!!!!!
UA as a result of a select few abusing a bug are losing profits. You all admit this.
Therefore they have to make back these profits on the backs of the masses who don't know of this feature, err bug. I'd argue the regular fares would come down incrementally eventually for EVERYONE if this was fixed.