Google Flights Starting to Reverse Engineer UA Pricing Algorithm?
 

First time I saw a message like this from Google Flights. I wonder if they've gathered enough data to start projecting the timing of major price inflection points and quantifying the dollar impact. Certainly looks like they're headed in that direction...

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...399765a234.png

In the examples I have seen over the past month, Google Flights seem to be looking at the Advance Purchase window expiration for the quoted fare.

Google has long been in the business of providing pricing tends predictions, this is just another enhancement.

+1, no need for a predictive model here. The advance purchase window is explicitly given in the fare details.

Finally an enhancement that I like!

Yes, saying the price will go up once departure is < 30 days out makes sense. What surprises me is Google actually projecting the new price. Further, they are projecting a price that seems absurdly high. UA is known to thrash the price at times and it seems Google might have collected enough data to use AI to project the thrash. I'll check if they got it right tonight...

The fares are filed for the same fare class but with shorter AP windows. It could be a simple case of comparing the greater than 30 day fare with the less than 30 day fare.

As others have said, this is simply AP requirements. The return flight is a 30-day advance purchase for the entire ticket (the outbound is 28 days AP). The size of the increase is because the cheaper fares that are filed for <30 day AP all don't cover the period 10-Dec through 23-Dec, so it bumps the fare class (and thus the fare) up fairly significantly...

The use of the word "likely" is because they can't know if UA is going to publish a new fare between now and tomorrow which might cause the increase not to occur.

The 10pm time mentioned is because united.com works on Central time as far as fare pricing. You can extent it a few hours through buying from an OTA based on the West Coast (eg, Expedia)

googleflights has long taken into account AP requirements. That's how they can tell you the fare will rise x dollars in y hours. You can figure out same from the fare table.

Nothing to see here.

If they are just pulling fares that UA has filed somewhere, then it's not as cool as I thought. I was hoping they could predict the type of thrash below. The Lisbon example seems crazy...

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6c6e558da6.png
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...10289e5bad.png

I mean the wiggling is because it's priced in pounds and charted in dollars so you are transforming the graph by the daily USD.GBP. Otherwise both look like normal fluctuations.

LHR-LIS $96 one way seems a little less of a good deal when you realize that TAP currently has SFO-LHR return available for $114!

(Covered in the Mileage Run forum. Earns 0% on UA)

That is precisely what they’re doing.

People often misunderstand the way airfare is priced. You can buy the $160-more-expensive ticket today, if you want. (It might have more flexibility, a different change fee, different upgrade priority, etc.). In fact, there are usually quite a few fares available for sale for any given ticket. All that they’re telling you is that tomorrow, you will no longer have the ability to buy the cheaper ticket.

Yeah, this information has been available for quite some time, if you "Track Prices" and look into it.

They have just added it to the main screen and put it in your face....rather than make you dig for it

While true, purchasing it "today" may be challenging. All websites that I know only offer the cheapest fare available for the search criteria entered, even if multiple fares are available.

Suppose corporate specifically requires me to fly 2nd level economy fares for whatever reason. Yet, I also want to maximize PQD. I'm booking a flight which leaves in 30 days. L is available, and there's a LRA2AKER 2nd level economy fare with a 21 day APR and a more expensive LRA4AKER 2nd level economy fare with a 14 day APR, and the only difference in the fare rules is the APR. Then I do not know of any website where I could go right now to purchase the LRA4AKER fare today. Not even our corporate travel portal has this flexibility. I could wait 10 days, but by then all 2nd level economy inventory could be gone.

I could call the TA tomorrow (closed on Sunday) and pay a surcharge for calling, with the additional need to go through him if I have to make changes. I could call UA today, also for a surcharge, but I have a feeling trying to get this done through the UA call center would be very challenging for both the call-taker and me as their software will probably insist on the cheaper fare as well.

If you know of a website that allows the flexibility of purchasing any fare (validatable with inventory) right now, I'd be all ears. That would be the logical ticketing extension to ITA we've been craving for so long. Note IME none of the ITA hacks that link to ticketing portals would price LRA4AKER when LRA2AKER is available, even when explicitly quoted on ITA.

Yes, a skilled travel agent should be able to do it. As for the UA call center, they'd almost certainly need to call the rate desk, and they'd probably be extremely confused. As you know, most people who would do something like this are more likely to book up a fare class -- to take the cheapest S fare instead of the cheapest L fare, for example.

If I needed to do this personally, I'd use a travel agent, as it would be worth paying the TA's fee to avoid trying to explain this to a UA phone agent. :)

I'm not aware of any, no. It's an extremely niche feature. :-)