GordonGordon

It's such a hassle to make a booking online for an itinerary that contains international flight segments in W booking class only (in order to use GPU)and domestic segments in lower booking class (S T L K G N, etc, in order to save money).

United.com flight search engine allows you to enter specific classes of service: (ex. Y, B, M) but, for example, in case if the lowest booking class available for both international & domestic segments is L, then even though if you enter classes of service (W, L), the international flight segment only shows L, not W. The flight search engine does not allow you to enter a specific booking class segment by segment. I always end up calling 1K agent to manually get me the booking class I want for an itinerary that contains couple of domestic flights and international flights, so sometimes I save hundreds of dollars because of that. I wonder if how you guys manage to make a booking that contains international and domestic segments (with couple of stops, few days each).

nickab

Yeah, this is a bummer. I too have not had luck with doing this on the website and, like you, have had to call it in. Would love to hear if people have a workaround.

WineCountryUA

You do have to call to do this but the reality is in many cases the fare is not appreciative different just booking W for the entire trip.

exerda

You unfortunately have to call. .bomb also does not let you pick different specific fare classes for the outbound and the return, which has resulted in me having to call in several times.

Depending on the route, L vs. W for the domestic segments may not be worth the hassle of calling in.

maxinkuckee04

be careful of pricing as well because sometimes, domestic flights as part of an intl itinerary can be part of a through fare which only incurs a stop over fee versus a separate domestic segment.

I had occasions where leaving it in a through fare made it cheaper than going below a W and pricing it separately because it forces a fare break.

redtailshark

This happens quite often when I investigate EU and LatAm itins. The W/V fares are certainly more flexible in terms of connecting airports and other considerations. This can allow the entire itin to be built in the higher class without much or any fare diff.

But to the OP: it's designed to be a pain to do this, that's precisely the point of these convoluted pricing architectures!

littlegreenmen

Anyone have any specific fare examples they can offer for full W vs. W on intl only?

mahasamatman

Not all fares are combinable. Just because there's a lower fare class on the domestic portion does not necessarily mean you can book it as you like.

kenn0223

I don't have time to look it up right now. But say there is an S or K fare BOS-SFO and then a W-fare SFO-SYD. Assuming both fares are combinable it would likely price out lower than W the whole way. I think, however, that some USA-AU fares simply require departure from any US airport (i.e. BOS-SYD is the same fare as say MSP-SYD or SFO-SYD). I don't know if any of the W+ fares are like this.

International fare construction is still fairly complex and, even if you call, it's not a guarantee that you'll get an agent who can / is willing to do all the work nor that the constructed fare will be materially cheaper than the original one.

exerda

I recall, for example, the great deal on a B fare DEN-NRT in 2012; that was a case where being able to combine fares would make it much cheaper. I don't recall how combinable it was, but it made over a $1000 difference if one could book, say, L on WAS-DEN and B on DEN-NRT, vs. B the whole way.

ualboston1k

You can call and ask them to book a single record / itinerary, but have tickets issued separately (or at least you could on the old UA Apollo Platform.)

Example: I have done circle pacific fares in the past which were only good starting from a few west coast gateways like SFO. I'm from BOS.

My first time doing it, I had them book the circle pacific trip from SFO-NRT-SIN-MEL-SFO. And then I had a separate itinerary/record/ticket for BOS-SFO round trip. This was a pain as then checking my luggage all they way from MEL to BOS was a hassle.

THe next time I did it I had the agent do one record locator / itinerary for BOS-SFO-NRT-SIN-MEL-SFO-BOS. And the SFO asia legs were one ticket and BOS-SFO round trip was a separate purchased ticket...but they were all on the same reservation.

You can likely do the same for domestic to international, as long as SHARES allows it. I thought I read that SHARES must have a single ticket for each reservation, but am not sure.

GroundStop

I was actually looking at this the other day......

SFO-ORD-LHR-ORD-SFO
- all in W booking code = $1273
- domestic in lower buckets (K & L), Int'l in W = $1538

See screenshots below (apologies for sizing/blurriness). As others have pointed out, there are often through fares which are considerably cheaper than constructing fares with fare breaks due to booking codes.

GordonGordon

Yes, that's what I'm talking about! Sometimes it saves you couple hundreds dollars, sometimes the amount is not significant (compare to all the way W), but if you are the one who pay for the ticket, not your company, every penny counts!

WineCountryUA

GroundStop point was it likely will cost you money if you don't use W for the domestic fare. That attempting a different domestic fare may not save money but rather will cost your money.

lhrsfo

I like to book W in one direction and a lower fare class in the other (I like to use my GPUs eastbound). I always need to call it in and the overall price is usuallymuch nearer the w price - certainly much more than halfway between the two.