NewbieConsultant

I'm trying to fly from Point A to Point C, and there's a stop in Point B in the middle (2 legs: A -> B, B -> C).

• A -> B is operated by a partner airline
• B -> C is operated by United

On the United website, searching for the cheapest economy flight is $1,000, in class K (for both A -> B, and B -> C). I'm interested in using a GPU, but I know that A - > B is not able to be upgraded because it's on a partner airline. For both A - > B and B - > C to be in W fare class, the price jumps to $1,300.

I'm curious if it's possible to to book A -> B (partner flight) in the cheaper fare class K (since it's not upgradeable anyway), and book W on the United-operated B -> C, since I presume this would be cheaper than W the entire way. I couldn't see a way to force this in expert mode. Any thoughts?

jsloan

There's almost no chance that this is cheaper. In fact, it's almost certainly much more expensive.

That said, multi-city search will allow you to select different fare classes on each leg.

NewbieConsultant

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried splitting it out multi-city and surprisingly it did not work. If I chose the cheaper "K" class on the A -> B leg, it wouldn't offer me a "W" option on the B - > C leg (the "Requested fare class" column in the search would disappear for B -> C, and the only option available is "K" -- even though there are "W" fares still available). I wonder if United is still considering it the same "flight"? Even shifting the A -> B leg to be a day earlier (vs. the same day as B -> C) still didn't work.

findark

It is unlikely that a K fare is combinable with a W fare on the same ticket. If you have a fare break in the gateway city with a short-haul fare behind it, you will probably need Y or B for the overwater segment (lowest regular fare, probably). You could split the ticket in the gateway, but this introduces risk and is likely still more expensive, as the W fare from the gateway is probably the same price as the W fare from the second-tier city.

fumje

There is probably no pair of W and K fares that you can use in this case. When you get your A -> B, B -> C flights, it is a fare that goes A -> C and routes you with a connection at B. When you start twiddling the fare classes of each leg, you then need fares filed for A -> B and B -> C at palatable prices.

In most cases, there's no cost saving in getting just the UA segment into W and the partner in a lower class, if that is even possible at all.

jsloan

Are you entering W for the requested fare class, or W, V, Q, H, U, E, B, M, Y, to get any upgradeable fare?

Regardless, it's extremely unlikely that the K fare is combinable with anything else -- and it may not even be available on its own, even if it looks like it is on the website.

What are your actual cities?

NewbieConsultant

Ah, got it - I assumed that if all-W is more expensive than all-K, a mix of W and K would be somewhere in the middle. Sounds like the general consensus that this is not actually the case.

The city pairings are SIN, NRT, and EWR, if you're curious!

jsloan

While that's an understandable assumption, it's rarely true. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that airfare is sold on an origin-destination basis, regardless of the route. Therefore, when you're looking at SIN-NRT-EWR, you're really paying the W fare for SIN-EWR; NRT doesn't enter into the conversation at all.

However, when you start to mix fare classes, you now have to fare each leg separately -- SIN-NRT plus NRT-EWR. (BTW, since you mentioned K fares, I assume that this is a round-trip flight, starting in Singapore and then returning there afterwards; there aren't any K fares published for SIN-EWR. If that's not the case, the advice is still sound but the details will be wrong). For a random set of midweek dates I picked next month, the SIN-EWR W fare is (US) $1537 RT. For those same dates, the NRT-EWR W fare is $1667 RT. In other words, it's cheaper to fly SIN-EWR-SIN in W than it is NRT-EWR-NRT in W, even before you add the cost of the SIN-NRT / NRT-SIN legs. And that's even before discussing combinability -- often, cheap fares can't be combined like that.

Kleinnaf

I'd book the full itinerary as one reservation in K and then call United to upgrade the one segment to W class.
have done this a few times with no issues

jsloan

In general, you don't want to do this.

Kleinnaf, it would depend upon the specifics of your itinerary, but what you've described will price out the same as if you bought it as a mixed-class flight to begin with... and that is rarely to your advantage compared to just buying the W fare in the first place. As I pointed out upthread, the W fare for NRT-EWR is actually more expensive than the W fare for SIN-EWR.

Kleinnaf

I guess so.

fumje

On what routes has this worked for you?

Kleinnaf

Ewr-tlv tlv-zrh-ewr-mia

WineCountryUA

Which segment do you change the fare class -- zrh-ewr?

Kleinnaf

yup and would've changer EWR-TLV but was only available in V to begin with lol