Just as a data point, I have both Canadian and American credit cards and I find that ex-YUL, a lot of my flights to Asia are cheaper when paying in CAD. Most recently I booked a fare to Singapore a few months ago for $1100 CAD when the price on the US website was $1050 USD

Follow up. If I go and cancel the ticket (within 24hrs). Do the cheap seat rates get allocated back so I can rebook on Expedia right after or it’s not worth the risk? Current rate for same seat is $180 USD.

It’s a scam if price diff is 50% or so. I’ve seen it before with 10-15% diff, NOT this high. I call it a scam, you guys are all ok with it. Fine. Call it normal.

I might just cancel and book American instead. This really pissed me off. I’ve done exactly the same flight with them and booked with my CC they didn’t change the price on me, same as AC.

American does this too. Controlling both fares and inventory by point of sale is standard practice for all airlines.

United should charge Canadians more. Air Canada charges Americans more. Reciprocity.

Nope it doesn’t. I’ve booked it many times in the past. Even if they did, price diff was so little I didn’t notice.

different point of sale offers different fare availability and pricing. Without knowing specific dates and flights, I’d guess what you saw were two different fare classes, with it initially showing say, an L in US point of sale, but say, a T in the Canadian.

UA, to be fair, does do it differently than most carriers. they use card billing address. Most use the POS of the departure city. Difference is you can truly see the difference the way UA does it (and note, it can work both ways, where the price may be lower, depending on availability in the different points of sale).

Good advice. I’m way more likely to give folks the benefit of the doubt when posed as a question, vs. wheb it sounds like they are screaming.

most carriers, including UA, do the same. It’s no different. Bags are listed at par for US-originating transborder fares (in USD) and Canadian ones (in CAD). For both carriers.

And you’re a bit behind...checked bags were raised several for months ago for both. $30 USD/CAD for the 1st bag, $50 for the second.

see above - that’s why you never noticed it on AC. Doesn’t change anything. It’s not an exchange issue, but an availability one, based on a different point of sale.

And I don’t see anyone defending the practice UA uses, just explaining it. There’s a huge difference.

no one here can tell you that. You can take your chances. But you can canceling your booking certainly doesn’t guarantee that seat will being back previous availability. Particularly across different points of sale. Since fares are dynamic, things change all the time - for whatever reason, UA could have zerod out the cheaper buckets for now, or a purchase threshold for the cheaper fare could have passed. So it might come back at the lower price, or it might not.

book American if you want. Again, it’s not going to change anything. I agree UA is shooting itself in the foot making this difference transparent (and helping in the case where it’s cheaper on the other point of sale, which also happens). But American prices differently based on different point of sale - that it doesn’t show it to you directly on their website isn’t going to change things.

this.

Example, I’ve had several instances of needing to book India-Thailand (or beyond) fares on TG. The Indian point of sale (via TGs website, or Indian OTAs) is always much cheaper than booking through a US point of sale (Orbitz, Expedia, United, etc.). Often half as much through India or less. so guess how I book?

again, they do it, you just don’t notice because of the way they implement it. If it makes you feel better about booking it that way, all good and just do that. But it’s not, in the end, really any different.

I understand the point of sale. If I booked on India’s site vs. US site but the fact that United does it based i your CC and no one else does is the problem. Plus the diff in fare is ridiculous.