big V

Hello FT brain trust,

I have used up my GPUs and am trying to identify what option is best for upgrading my next set of flights. I don't want to burn 70k miles in one shot, so want to buy up to biz on the outbound and use miles on the return.

This is the second time I have spoken to a UA agent who quoted me an exorbitant fare to upgrade only the long-haul leg (like, 4-5 times higher than the price on united.com to buy up both segments). When I expressed surprise at how high the difference is, I have had multiple agents tell me it's because my ticket has been booked as a "through fare."

I have googled "through fare," "thru fare," and various permutations thereof together with United, to no luck.

Can anyone explain this "through fare" to me? What does it mean, and why does it making buying up so expensive?

My tickets are booked through a corporate travel agent. Do I need to ask them to do something differently? If so, what instructions do I need to provide?

Thanks for any light you can shed on this situation.

WineCountryUA

Is this an international trip? On many international routes, OW tickets will only be available for very high fares -- not uncommon for the OW international segment to be more expensive than a RT ticket.

What are the fare classes?

Additionally the "cash" ticket and award ticket can not be on the same PNR.

Misread OP as return being a mileage ticket -- but OP was asking about a mileage upgrade.

docbert

Say you're flying MCO-EWR-FRA. When you come to buy the ticket there's two ways it can price. You can either pay the fare to go from MCO-EWR plus the fare from EWR-FRA. Or you can pay the fare from MCO-FRA, on a fare that allows a connection in EWR. The latter of these is a "through fare", as it's one fare covering the flights all the way from MCO through to FRA.

Which of these two options is cheaper will depend on the fares on the day, but at least the way that UA has been pricing things recently it's very common for something like MCO-FRA to be significantly cheaper than EWR-FRA, so the through fare will end up cheaper than the split fare option.

When it comes to up-fare, they will most likely be splitting it into 2 fares, so you'll pay MCO-EWR in economy, plus EWR-FRA in business - which again will likely be (far) more expensive than MCO-FRA in business, which is why they are quoting you more for upgrading just the one leg than both of them.

OW v's RT shouldn't come into it, as it's generally completely valid to have one direction in business and the other in economy, all on the same ticket, and still have it price as a RT fare. Technically this is down to the fare rules (specifically the combinability rules), but I don't think even UA has got that stingy yet to not allow things like that...

jsloan

It actually gets even worse than that. Many of UA's least expensive fares -- particularly discount business class fares -- disallow end-on-end ticketing. End-on-end ticketing is what docbert is describing here: an MCO-EWR fare followed by a EWR-FRA, one fare starting immediately upon the "end" of the other.

Therefore, it is entirely possible -- even likely -- that you might be able to get a (deep discount) P fare on MCO-EWR-FRA, but if you elect only to upfare the long leg, you might end up with a W fare from MCO-EWR and a (not very discounted :-) D fare from EWR to FRA. And that's independent of whether or not that discounted P fare from EWR-FRA is more expensive than the "same" P fare from MCO-(EWR)-FRA, which is entirely possible.

There are two possible solutions:

1 - The "upgrade a flight" option, offered on United.com during booking and -- if seats are available -- at check-in, allows you to upgrade individual legs without refaring the ticket. Note that you may not earn additional PQMs/PQDs for these type of upgrades.
2 - Upgrade the entire direction (MCO-EWR-FRA, in this example).

Hope this helps. :-)

findark

Indeed - this is the biggest driver of additional cost by far. To use the example of MCO-FRA, you can do that trip for ~4k in P class (random dates). To add a break in travel in EWR, the outbound is upped to a Z fare which allows a stopover in EWR (total is now 5k). To force a fare break in EWR (meaning, to use the two separate fares above), it requires "full C" on EWR-FRA in both directions (due to combinability) and ends up pushing the ticket north of 12k.

afrozenfyre

Why not use the upgrade available online? Breaking the fare is what is causing the price to go up, so you won't save anything by upgrading only the longhaul if that is your intention.

Also, isn't this the purpose of GG BUYUP?

ryman554

GG BUYUP won't do anything that you couldn't do at booking/time of buyup request. The fare rule are the fare rules and there's no changing that. (Edit: until you start flying. Those rules I've never understood well)

Same with the upgrade available online -- if you're doing it before flying your first leg, it refares the entire itinerary -- it should be in all respect the same concept as GG BUYUP. It's not going to change the end-on-end restrictions and/or fare break issues.

Unless, of course, you are using mileage upgrades. Here, you play a balancing act on the mileage upgrade co-pay ($500 ish)+cost of miles ($200 ish) for one direction of travel compared to the difference in fare, lightly dependent on the class of service paid. Usually these mileage upgrades are terrible bargains -- it's typically cheaper to purchase the business class seat outright, but in a case like this might make sense.

big V

Thank you so much for the explanation, everyone.

I am flying XXX-EWR-DEL so the examples of the fare constructions above are very illuminating.

To be honest, I'm a bit puzzled why none of the reservations agents straightened me out by telling me that I could get the same results at a much cheaper price by doing something different than what I was asking for. I think of all of the calls I have made along these lines in the last year, only one 1K agent spent a good 20 minutes working with the fare desk to see how to do this most cost-effectively.

Still a happy ending: As I was checking up on my itin last night, I saw the "buy up to first" banner below the reservation for only $410, instead of the original $1200 or so that was being displayed all week or the $250 + 35,000 miles copay option. I thought it was an error, but lo and behold I was able to buy up from U to P on the outbound flights for a pittance. AND I get twice the PQMs! This was 7 days out, I guess revenue management made some adjustments? Regardless, this was exactly the kind of scenario I was trying to get when calling the 1K desk -- help me find the cheapest way to upgrade without a GPU and without burning so many miles.

The return is a lot more problematic since I have a K fare and Z and D are showing 0. I don't know whether to just suck up the $600 + 35,000 miles copay now or wait a bit to see how things shake out since the return is >21 days away.

A little sad that it takes FT over US reservations to help me understand what I need. Then again, most people calling UA likely don't want to know the esoteric details of how it all works, so the agents are probably working under that assumption.

Thanks again, all!

findark

Out of curiosity, were you originally ticketed in K on the return? The "Buy up..." link has a bad habit of offering to re-fare your ticket from e.g. U/U to P/K.

big V

Yes, original ticket on the return in K


I'm not sure I follow you. Does the buy up link intentionally take a cheap fare (e.g., K) and try to turn it into a very expensive one? It keeps saying buy up to "first," which I don't know if it's boilerplate since the A/C is all J (777-200) on the international segment, but F on the domestic segment. Is this causing the exorbitant pricing? Or is it the fact that the DEL-EWR segment is only $159? (Which I found astonishing when I looked at the fare breakdown/PQM/RDM earnings. My EWR-WAS is only $5!)

jsloan

No, quite the opposite. There have been multiple reports of people who had purchased a higher fare class -- e.g., to waitlist a GPU -- and then found themselves with a lower fare class after accepting a low up-fare on a different segment. It appears that in some cases the price displayed is the difference between the current ticket and the cheapest possible ticket that combines business class in one direction and coach in the other -- so findark was concerned that you had unwittingly been changed from U/U to P/K, possibly adding additional restrictions to your ticket.