emcampbe

All airlines ‘are good’ at imposing point of sale restrictions. UA just does it differently than most.

Most carriers specify the POS using the departure city (and most price it in that local currency, though not always), then you can use a card from any country to buy it. UA based the POS based on CC billing address. The biggest issue with the way UA does it is the potential switcheroo in prices, though to be fair, the price change can go either way depending on the circumstance (I suspect you’re seeing a biased sample here, because, firstly, FT, but I really mean the folks getting a reduction in price due to their billing address and subsequent POS change probably aren’t going to be coming to a forum to complain). With most carriers defaulting the POS to the departure city, the price doesn’t change because no matter what local country website of the carrier you start at, it changes to the ‘correct’ one as you search, and that price you see is going to be available to you.

italdesign

Thanks all for weighing in. I played around a bit more. { Paypal with US CC } and { Vietnam address in the UA payment page } didn't help. I might try some more creativity.

Some OTAs show the lower price, others don't. ANA doesn't; I'll keep an eye on it. Does anyone by chance know ANA's cancellation policy?

Kacee

That is completely false. My personal list of carriers which did not enforce POS restrictions when purchasing tix on the internet incudes CX, TG, AV, and CM. I'm sure there are many others. So I will reiterate that UA's IT is particularly effective at enforcing these.

Ghoulish

Some airlines use IP geolocation for the purpose of pricing, irrespective of payment method.

A good, cheap VPN (NordVPN is what I use) can really open your eyes to the pricing games.

On ANA and JAL, switching to Indonesia or Thailand as my location with a click of the VPN, consistently results in lower fares than the US site if the flight originates from that region, and sometimes if originating in the US. Prices in local currency. Thankfully the country specific sites allow language selection independently so I can work in English.

Neither my (US) address nor payment method has any impact on pricing.

italdesign

I did try a Vietnam VPN server in combination with Paypal and Vietnam address, still no help.

Kacee

I wonder if you now have a cookie that's telling UA you're US based. You might try a different browser.

tr3k

Same.

Regardless of the vpn used, removed cookies and other country "presentation", at the point where I tried to pay with a US card, itinerary both repriced and quietly turned half of the trip from J to Y (which only became obvious when the ticket was issued). Didn't let me select "pay at the airport in person" either.

entropy

i was booking a trip today YYZ-ORD-YYZ; the trip was quoted as $230 USD, I was going to be using a canadian USD corporate card and at the payment page it ended up repricing as CAD ... @ 380 CAD, which is way more than the FX difference.

I ended up re-searching and it looks like with a Canadian PoS the ORD-YYZ was only giving K instead of G.. I was able to force it thru the US PoS and got G/G... great price.... but definitely annoying. I know Canadians are used to getting ripped off by their airlines, but this was an interesting data point for me.

Repooc17

Sometimes it's the other way around.

Other airlines are not as difficult as UA's POS model. For example, I was able to purchase a wholly US domestic itinerary through AA's legacy European POS for more than half less than going through AA's US home page, all without having to use a credit card from a different country or re-jigger my home country. And, got 2.5 days than than the normal 24 hours refund. Ended up having to cancel and made some profit

emcampbe

Not false at all. As I’ve said multiple times in this thread over the years, UA imposes POS restrictions based on CC billing address. Most airlines do not do this, you are correct - they force it based on other requirements. Most, at least IME, impose the POS of the departing airport instead, and you can use the card from any, well, most any, country. You can still get around this by using a local OTA in your country.

dinoscool3

Is there any workaround for this in the last year? I'm looking at a one way from SIN and it is $850 on the Singapore website and 3500 on the US website.

WineCountryUA

A solution is buy via an outlet that does not enforce these POS -- however that means you need to understand the the change / cancellation / credits of the other outlet.

bocastephen

A local brick/mortar travel agent in Singapore can take care of this for you and provide the required support in case of any issues.

emcampbe

probably an SG-based OTA could do it as well.

bocastephen

As a general rule, I would avoid an OTA, especially overseas, if you can find a proper travel agent to handle the booking. Since the agency should be earning a commission on most tickets, there is no need to charge a booking fee. Just shop around. You want someone accessible who can handle problems, rebooking, etc.

The agency GDS will be set to that location, so their fares should match what is online - unless it's a specific online-only webfare, which I've rarely seen on UA, but can be common on CX, SQ, etc.