merged split fare/ticket
Sep 16, 2021, 4:24 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: SBA
Programs: UA MM etc
Posts: 62
merged split fare/ticket
(There must be a thread on this, but I can't find it.)
Many times on "complex" routings I have had UA phone agents "split" the fare in two and then recombine them to get a lower total price. As an example, on-line, LAX-ACC-LAX in business is $2300 for my dates of interest, but adding SBA-LAX--a $100 flight--to the beginning yields a price of $4500--an increase of $2200. In the past, an agent would price the LAX-ACC and SBA-LAX as separate fares/tickets (not sure about the terminology) and then merge them to yield a final, single ticket with SBA-LAX-ACC-LAX for $2400. Today, I spoke to two agents who said they had no idea what I was talking about. Is this no longer possible with UA or did I just get two clueless agents?
Many times on "complex" routings I have had UA phone agents "split" the fare in two and then recombine them to get a lower total price. As an example, on-line, LAX-ACC-LAX in business is $2300 for my dates of interest, but adding SBA-LAX--a $100 flight--to the beginning yields a price of $4500--an increase of $2200. In the past, an agent would price the LAX-ACC and SBA-LAX as separate fares/tickets (not sure about the terminology) and then merge them to yield a final, single ticket with SBA-LAX-ACC-LAX for $2400. Today, I spoke to two agents who said they had no idea what I was talking about. Is this no longer possible with UA or did I just get two clueless agents?
Sep 16, 2021, 4:31 pm
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 21,683
(There must be a thread on this, but I can't find it.)
Many times on "complex" routings I have had UA phone agents "split" the fare in two and then recombine them to get a lower total price. As an example, on-line, LAX-ACC-LAX in business is $2300 for my dates of interest, but adding SBA-LAX--a $100 flight--to the beginning yields a price of $4500--an increase of $2200. In the past, an agent would price the LAX-ACC and SBA-LAX as separate fares/tickets (not sure about the terminology) and then merge them to yield a final, single ticket with SBA-LAX-ACC-LAX for $2400. Today, I spoke to two agents who said they had no idea what I was talking about. Is this no longer possible with UA or did I just get two clueless agents?
Many times on "complex" routings I have had UA phone agents "split" the fare in two and then recombine them to get a lower total price. As an example, on-line, LAX-ACC-LAX in business is $2300 for my dates of interest, but adding SBA-LAX--a $100 flight--to the beginning yields a price of $4500--an increase of $2200. In the past, an agent would price the LAX-ACC and SBA-LAX as separate fares/tickets (not sure about the terminology) and then merge them to yield a final, single ticket with SBA-LAX-ACC-LAX for $2400. Today, I spoke to two agents who said they had no idea what I was talking about. Is this no longer possible with UA or did I just get two clueless agents?
If the LAX-ACC fare were combinable with the SBA-LAX fare, then the computer should price this automatically and you wouldn't need to get an agent to do it manually. If it's not combinable, then they shouldn't have been able to book it, and would have had to break a lot of rules to do so.
You can book this yourself on separate tickets, but there's no way to merge them, and, in theory, if your SBA-LAX flight were delayed, UA would have no obligation to get you to ACC. (In practice, if your inbound and outbound flights are both operated by UA, they tend to be quite reasonable).
Now, it's possible that the agents created separate tickets and put them both into the same record locator (reservation) in order to simplify things for you, but separate tickets would still carry the downsides I mentioned. (Also, agents aren't really supposed to put multiple tickets into the same record, so that'd be another rule broken).