adventures_await

I am planning a vacation to France next spring. When I compare the same United flights on the United app with the Lufthansa and Expedia apps the Business class fares are $ 400+ more on the United app. Any idea why?
Thanks

DELee

UA wants more of your money. Period.

David

WineCountryUA

There could be a number of reason for this

LH and UA have legal joint venture which allows them to unify fares
For each LH/UA TATL flight, inventory is allocated to native flight inventory (flight number code by the operator and codeshare flight numbers coder by the other airline)
Then inventory id split into P, Z, D, C and J -- each progressively more expensive.
As inventory is sold out in each inventory class under native or codeshare inventory prices will effectively increase

WHat you will find is the flights you are comparing are in different inventory class of different flight numbers.

So at times the codeshare (LH or Expedia) of the same flight can be more or less expense then the native flight number (UA, in this case)

This can go either way and as demand switches to the lower fare -- that fare class will sell out or the higher fare will open new lower cost inventory -- but this does not happen instantaneously but eventually will

Just another example of the weird airfare pricing mechanics

One thing (if prices are nearly equal) it is better to purchase for the flight operate, especially given the high probability of changes in the next 9 months. And presently the change policies on UA ticket is much friendlier than LH. And Expedia is very difficult to work with on changes.

Yes but that is not the reason for this

DELee

The outcome is the same. The OP has to pay more to fly on a 016 ticket.

David

trk1

David--you get what you pay for---if you want options the foreign carrier does not have liberal change policies

cfischer

not at all. Google flights will likely return the same fare that Exoefia shows with a link to buy on United.com

DELee

Agreed. But the OP's post was specifically focused on price and not necessarily "flexibiity".

Maybe - the OP indicated that Expedia was higher for UA plated. I'll let the OP respond if GFlights is/was any better pricewise than the UA app.

David

adventures_await

The same flights were cheaper on google flights than what United app was listing.

jsloan

For clarity, when you say “the same flights,” do you mean the exact same sequence of flight numbers? Or do you mean, Google found the same physical flights, but using codeshared flights for at least one segment? (i.e., Google found, e.g., LH flight 123, and the United app found flight UA7923 operated by LH flight 123?) It makes a big difference to understanding why this is happening.

If you can give a sample itinerary (dates, cities, and times) when you’re seeing this behavior, someone can likely figure out what’s happening. There’s not enough to go on yet — airfare is extremely complicated.

WineCountryUA

And other times less, this codeshare inventory price difference can and does work both ways. If UA was always higher there might be a point here but it isn't.

An issue a place like FT can raise as not all are aware there may be differences between carriers

Lux Flyer

Wanted to confirm you do mean plated and not marketed? Plating on UA ticket stock or LH ticket stock shouldn't matter, as I'm not aware of any JV fares that are filed with ticketing stock restrictions. The fare filings should be the same regardless of whose ticket stock it's on and should be able to issue a specific fare on either ticket stock for the same price. However as has been indicated in earlier posts the fare filings and inventory may be different for the codeshare vs. the native flight (but that is a marketing difference, not a plating difference).

Also another thing to keep in mind is rarely Expedia or google flights could be using stale filings/inventory whereas the UA app should be the most current fares, and if it was tried to book using those channels, it wouldn't go all the way through due the fare no longer being current. (or in the case of Expedia it could be an unpublished fare they're listing for one set of flights, but I believe GF only works with published fares)

wetrat0

Exactly. I'm sure it's to do with IT issues and alignment of fare classes, which isn't uniform in one direction. Example: I recently booked an economy class LH flight on the UA codeshare because it was cheaper than booking it on LH flight numbers. Somehow the fare booked into premium economy on LH (speaking to the fact that fare designations aren't perfectly aligned). Then I got an op up into J at the gate (no status on either airline).

fwfdan

On expedia it would be an 016 ticket...

jsloan

There is a precise alignment between UA and LH fare classes. UA O,A,R -> LH G,E,N for PE fares. All economy and business class fares map directly (UA doesn’t use G, E, or N on its TATL flights at all).

Was this a particularly expensive ticket? It sounds like perhaps UA had an R seat available while LH didn’t have an N seat, and the filed R fare was less expensive than the cheapest available economy seat.

adventures_await

You can see the exact flight queries lists higher prices on the app vs on the United web site.