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Fun with Fare Classes
As a full time data viz consultant and a travel hacking hobbyist, about a year ago I decided it would be a fun project to create a script that would mine pricing information at the fare class level. The bot ran every day for almost a year, scraping data for 19 different United flights. I then took the data and visualized it, in an attempt to add some transparency to what has pretty much been a black box. You can find a sneak preview below, and the full article here: https://www.infinityinsight.com/blog/?p=388&src=1. I'm not sure if this helps anyone, just wanted to share some geeky fun for like-minded individuals :cool:
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6919a9c3b4.png https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...1090a2cb00.png |
Very interesting. I'm curious when B fares are ever 10-20% of Y fares... Can you shed some light on any patterns related to the production of those cases?
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Originally Posted by GBadger
(Post 31712670)
Very interesting. I'm curious when B fares are ever 10-20% of Y fares... Can you shed some light on any patterns related to the production of those cases?
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Originally Posted by GBadger
(Post 31712670)
Very interesting. I'm curious when B fares are ever 10-20% of Y fares... Can you shed some light on any patterns related to the production of those cases?
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Originally Posted by MSPeconomist
(Post 31712755)
Some government fares are Y, but they're heavily discounted on most routes (even for last seat availability).
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Originally Posted by vgutkovsky
(Post 31712833)
For instance, flip the "Visualizing the Flow" charts to flight 1741. Class B was at a significant discount vs Y for most of the time the flight was on sale.
For some reason, UA has published a PE fare table for the CHI-NYC market, which uses differential pricing like domestic F. Of course, there are no PE-equipped planes on that route, so it delegates to B. The cheapest such fare is available with a 14-day advance purchase, on any flight with K availability. I just tried it for a random date in December, and I get a one-way "B" fare for $193. It will accrue at B rates (1.5x PQM) and will be instant-upgrade eligible -- and it should be eligible for free E+, regardless of status -- but otherwise it's still a run-of-the-mill non-refundable fare. I remember seeing a post recently from someone contemplating a mileage run who had also found a similar low B fare. |
Originally Posted by jsloan
(Post 31712877)
It's not a "real" B fare, but it sort of acts like one.
For some reason, UA has published a PE fare table for the CHI-NYC market, which uses differential pricing like domestic F. Of course, there are no PE-equipped planes on that route, so it delegates to B. The cheapest such fare is available with a 14-day advance purchase, on any flight with K availability. I just tried it for a random date in December, and I get a one-way "B" fare for $193. It will accrue at B rates (1.5x PQM) and will be instant-upgrade eligible -- and it should be eligible for free E+, regardless of status -- but otherwise it's still a run-of-the-mill non-refundable fare. I remember seeing a post recently from someone contemplating a mileage run who had also found a similar low B fare. |
Originally Posted by jsloan
(Post 31712877)
It's not a "real" B fare, but it sort of acts like one.
For some reason, UA has published a PE fare table for the CHI-NYC market, which uses differential pricing like domestic F. Of course, there are no PE-equipped planes on that route, so it delegates to B. The cheapest such fare is available with a 14-day advance purchase, on any flight with K availability. I just tried it for a random date in December, and I get a one-way "B" fare for $193. It will accrue at B rates (1.5x PQM) and will be instant-upgrade eligible -- and it should be eligible for free E+, regardless of status -- but otherwise it's still a run-of-the-mill non-refundable fare. I remember seeing a post recently from someone contemplating a mileage run who had also found a similar low B fare. Looks like this is the rollout of E+ as a separate cabin. Because PE remains present on its own terms in the domestic market, this is pretty clearly going the way of Delta where there will be four classes of service: Y/E+/PE/J. Remains to be seen if they will try to rotate out a booking code or two for Economy Plus as an rbd and/or change the technical means of elite access to "upgrade at purchase" like Delta now does. The "shadow B fares" as it were are not in fact delegating; they simply have B as the prime rbd and do indeed carry the secondary inventory check. Like other PE fares, when booking in B they permit E+ assignment for free for non-elites. E+ cabin fares have 'P' in seventh position; true domestic PE has 'O' in seventh position. They are published in parallel on SFO-EWR, but not in all markets yet (SFO-IAD has neither). SFO-EWR fare family W4/Q: Code:
----------------------------------------------------------------------E+ fare filing and booking rules: Code:
V FARE BASIS BK FARE TRAVEL-TICKET AP MINMAX RTGCode:
V FARE BASIS BK FARE TRAVEL-TICKET AP MINMAX RTG |
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