BigFlyer

My son travelled to TLV this summer on UA from SFO. The entire itinerary was booked in S (SL106NCE). He has flown the outbound segments.

I went online yesterday to change his return from the non-stop to a few days stopover in Munich, then on to San Francisco.

Even though the return journey was now booked in the cheaper T class (TL106NCE), the ticket price went up by $109.10. I attributed that to extra taxes and airport fees from the new Munich stopover and paid the $109.10 for the reissued ticket.

Later in the day I investigated further, and was surprised that the base fare had remained at $500. I looked and saw that the while the base fare for the T fare was $350, United had changed the already flown outbound flight to WL106NCE, which had a base fare of $650. So the $500 base fare shown on the new ticket was adding the new outbound fare of $650 to the new inbound base fare of $350 and dividing by 2.

So, my question - was the changing of the fare basis and fare amount of the already flown outbound flight correct? Or did United just pick my pocket for $75? My question to UA Twitter support was met with a generic response. If United was correct, what rule is it that allows them to do that?

One more thing - as a test I started an online change of the inbound back to the original flight but stopped before actually making the change. United was not going to refund me not the $109.10 that was paid to switch, but only $34.10, which meant that it was going to keep the higher fare basis for the outbound flight. The original flight was showing S9 so there was no availability issue.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Others with deeper knowledge will reply, but I think adding a stopover probably required re-pricing the outbound to a higher class that allowed the stopover. You cannot just add a stopover to a ticket that does not originally allow one.

BigFlyer

The outbound fare in S class allowed a free stopover.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Can you show the fare rules for your original ticket?

jsloan

Normally I would say yes. In this particular case, I'm leaning toward no.

The flight change that you made. The reason would normally be that the new itinerary didn't qualify for one of the restrictions of the S fare -- but the S fare and W fare both appear to have the same minimum stay restrictions, and both appear to be combinable with any fare. The T fare also appears to be combinable with any fare. And, in fact, I can compute a multi-city trip on ITA Matrix using the S/T combination; no W fare is required.

This is definitely normal. UA won't recalculate a fare that has already been flown unless necessary, and then, barring something extraordinary, always to a higher fare basis (because fares are normally less restrictive as you walk up the fare table).

OK, so, I'm not really sure how to proceed. It appears to be a pricing error, and they didn't offer you the lowest possible fare. However, you also agreed to the price that they quoted, so I'm not sure that you have grounds for, e.g., a chargeback.

I think I'd start by contacting UA and asking why your already-flown flight was re-fared. If you don't get satisfaction, you might consider a DOT complaint. I'm not sure whether or not they're legally required to offer you the lowest possible fare for your route (ethically required, absolutely). However, there's a good chance that a DOT complaint would lead to an ETC for the difference, if not a full refund.

BigFlyer

Too long to post here - but here's a Drobox link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/aetknyd9hh...r.com.pdf?dl=0

garykung

For $109.10, I would just keep my mouth shut.

It is not worth to argue with UA when there is no clear answer of an error.

docbert

Wat's the new return date? There's a seasonality restriction on that fare that applies to the inbound flight. Presumably the original return was on or after August 16 - was the new return on/after that date too?

BigFlyer

Actually, it's not even $109.10 overcharge - it's only $75.

My reasons for pursuing this include:

• I'm interested in how these things actually work. Both for eclectic geeky reasons - and because I am much more likely to be changing reservations in the future given that there are no change fees, so I'd like to be able to plan ahead.
• If UA did this to me incorrectly - presumably it has done the same with others. If it has, it needs to fix its software.

Also, you say "here is no clear answer of an error". It is getting clearer, as no one has come up with an explanation as to why it was appropriate to re-fare the already flown portion.

Yup, new return date is after August 16th.

jsloan

Seasonality restrictions wouldn't come into play here. It's not saying "your inbound must be between these dates and your outbound must be between these dates or the fare doesn't apply." It's saying "in order for this fare component to apply to an inbound flight, it would need to apply to these dates, and in order for it to apply to an outbound flight, it would need to apply to these other dates. If one flight is inside the seasonality window, and one is outside, and the fare allows half-round-trip construction (which this one does), and the fares are combinable (this one is), then you could still use the seasonal fare, on a half-round-trip basis, for the applicable flight.

It's not possible for seasonality to change after the fact, causing a reprice.

Sykes

My best guess is that you're running into the higher intermediate point (HIP) rule, but it would be hard to tell without digging a lot deeper. Even though stopovers are free in the fare rule, unless the HIP rule is waived in the fare rules then any time you add a stopover at, for example, point B in an A->B->C itinerary, the fare is repriced as the highest fare between A->B, B->C, and A->C. So while your original fare would have been SFO->TLV, it's possible that that the SFO->MUC or TLV->MUC fare might have been higher so you'd have to pay that fare once you added a stopover.

Re-faring the already-flown portion is pretty common in a situation like that. It would be nice to see the fare construction, but I don't think that United provides any way to see it for itineraries booked on united.com. It's entirely possible that the lowest priced option ended up being a SFO->MUC fare with a stopover in TLV or something similar.

BigFlyer

I don't think that's it - as the re-faring to WL106NCE to which the outbound was re-fared exists in the SFO-TLV market, but not in the SFO-MUC market.

Also, the original fare that was re-fared (copy in Dropbox link above) says "THE HIGHER INTERMEDIATE POINT RULE DOES NOT APPLY FOR STOPOVERS"

jsloan

Huh? It's not like OP was trying to take advantage of a mistake fare or something. At worst, he paid the correct amount, but there's a legitimate chance that he was overcharged, so why not investigate it?

Ooh, HIP is a good thought. It's so routinely waived on UA fares that I didn't even think of it.

However... the S fare in question waives the HIP check at the stopover point.

OP: When you pulled it up on ExpertFlyer, did you input your actual ticketing date? I guess it's somewhat possible that they changed the HIP rule and then re-filed the same fare. It's not likely -- like I said, UA routinely waives HIP -- but at least it's possible. And it would explain why I can currently construct a trip using the S/T combination on ITA Matrix.

BigFlyer

I did use the original date - don't know if that means that ExpertFlyer gave me the historical fare.

Sykes

You're absolutely right, my bad. I think you were overcharged. The website is notoriously bad at pricing exchanges so it wouldn't be particularly surprising if that's the case. If you call you might be able to get someone to reprice it properly and refund the difference, although that sounds like an uphill battle to me.