ironmanjt

In theory...and I know we're an outlier community, but I know personally of 7 "miles and points people" from FT and other groups that have all traveled in the last two weeks solely because they were missing travelling.

Hopefully, as I said, outliers, and the other 99.99% of people are "have to travel" people.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Nor do they have provide former non-stops. A lot of UA's city pair non-stops are now connections through different hubs. Also, where UA did have service to outer Islands in Hawaii, they're offering connecting service to UA flights out of HNL on HA.

jsloan

I don't think that codeshares meet DOT requirements, or they wouldn't have applied to drop service to the outer islands.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

You're probably right, but maybe UA has mentioned the HA to UA HNL hook-up available in their application for the Islands being (I hope) temporarily abandoned?

spartacusmcfly

Looks like UA is using a two-pronged pricing strategy:

1. Cash - Fairly expensive fares. Not full Y, but not deep discount either.
2. Mileage - Saver award broadly available (domestic and international)

Makes sense. Charge business flyers a healthy fare, while letting leisure flyers burn miles to reduce the liabilities on the balance sheet.

Hawkeyefan

Thanks for all the insight. Sounds like for the next few months perhaps fares pretty average for necessity travelers. What about the end of 2020 into 2021? I'm sure as shooting going to be doing some travel by then.

mahasamatman

Our December YVR-SFO flight has dropped by about 50% in the past couple of weeks. It hasn't been this cheap in 10 years.

Vulcan

I booked yesterday TPA>EWR>TPA for the weekend before Christmas, returning the weekend after New Years day. $134 each way. Typically these fares are in the $400-$500 each way range

CALMSP

no kidding, haven't seen any good fares on th international scale, but the saver business is amazing!!!

spartacusmcfly

What's interesting is the Revenue Management systems must all be useless in this environment. A typical revenue management system would be looking at forward loads and be slashing fares. My guess is all the airlines are using their Revenue Management systems but have manually set cash 'pricing floors' at a certain fare class.

On the mileage side, they are letting the Revenue Management system run on full auto-pilot, which is why saver is available to everywhere.

wanderingkev

Given that UA has already announced major layoff's in September it will be interesting to see how that transpires practically , reduced schedules ,dropping routes leaving certain airports ....who knows. I am guessing that will be communicated in the July /August window
Might be difficult to predict fare sweet spots until these cards fall

sfo3388

Through entire year, you can find several dates that J fare from USA to Europe is relatively cheap. Just above $2000. I have seen this kind of fare with departure dates in August, November and December. This has nothing to do with the coronavirus. This fare requires 60 days advance purchase.

One example is https://www.google.com/flights/?f=0&...;sc:b;sd:1;t:f

You can replace ORD with SFO, LAX or EWR and get the same fare. Also replace CDG with the city you like.

Mileage Run forum may have more for you.

donjo

My experience has been the following. Where there were once 6 or 7 flights between city pairs, they are down to 1, and some days none. That makes it extremely difficult to get places now. Also, at the beginning of this pandemic, United was pricing their flights lower than I've ever seen even for flights the following day. Over the past week, they have adjusted prices back to where they were pre-pandemic. A lot of moving parts here. I fly about 3 days out of the week. I have some odd stuff when trying to change flights on the app. Yesterday I wanted to change ELP to DEN to AUS to ELP to IAH. The app waived the change fee but wanted $500 as a fare difference. Were I to simply book a new itinerary it would have only been $399, so not sure how to explain that. When I called the 1K desk they kindly made the change for free. Perhaps many people are price insensitive but I am not, spending an extra few hundred each week just to change flights adds up.

WineCountryUA

Long know issue of the change flight tool. Always pay to change prices first with the regular booking tool, and when the problem occurs, call as you did.