Quaker

I am traveling IAD to Capetown late next May and unfortunately don't have nearly enough miles left. Of course the Polaris/Business class tickets are PRICEY!

I've watched the round trip price go from around $4,000 a month ago, up to $6,300, down to $5,300, up to $5,600, and back down to $5,300 today.

When should I pull the trigger? It's a new itinerary for United so there's no price history.
Only 4 of the 48 available seats have been booked on the outbound, only 3 have been booked on the return. Does that mean I should wait? What's the strategy?

Thank you!!!

mahzor

I had some rules prepandemic but they were to book well in advance and then tickets that leave on tuesday/thursdays because those were the days where outbound traffic is the lowest.

Also set a google price alert for the trip so you get emailed any time they drop the price below average

johnsmith

With all the free change fee and ability to refund and re-buy, I doubt you buying a seat or two is going to prop up the fare or increase it. If you are def taking the trip, and that’s a price you’d pay, buy it and refund/rebuy if it comes down

jsloan

Welcome to FlyerTalk!

There is no strategy. Airlines do everything in their power to make it impossible to predict prices. If you think it's a good value at $5300, buy it. If the price goes down, you can cancel, rebook, and keep the remaining amount as a credit. If not, you're locked in.

Personally, I wouldn't consider buying a ticket at that price 8 months ahead of time, because traditionally the best fares tend to be offered somewhere between 3 months and 3 weeks ahead of departure, and that hardly sounds like a bargain. However, what you're seeing is the lowest price currently published for that route -- a Z fare with a base of $4250 and a fuel surcharge of $1000. It has a 60 day minimum purchase requirement and requires a 7 day minimum stay. And, like I said, the airlines try really hard to make this unpredictable, so just because some period of time has traditionally been the best doesn't mean that it will continue to be the best.

A little over a month ago, there was a P fare offered with a base of $2400 as well as a $3300 Z fare. That fare expired on August 16th. Will they bring it back? Only time will tell.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Those prices have hardly reached “pricey” levels, yet. $4000 was probably the bargain. I’ve seen the same pattern - cheapest in first month or two of availability and then a upward-trending roller coaster of fares. As time goes by, the roller coaster continues, but the lowest fare gets more expensive. I’m guessing $5300 is the cheapest you might see from here on out, but that is certainly just a guess.

The "strategy" (as mentioned in a later post) is to buy a cheaper ticket on another airline that will require a connection, or be prepared to buy a ticket on UA that's probably not going to be more cheaper than you have already seen.

HNLbasedFlyer

$5,300 doesn't sound terrible for a round trip flight that length - nor does it sound like a smoking hot deal. Personally - tying that money up 8 months in advance would give me the most pause. Who knows what will happen - will gas spike up again causing prices to rise - will we go into deep recession causing airlines to panic and drop prices - will we get another Covid variant? It also isn't high season in May so that is also in your favor - I think the price will ultimately come down but then again, I could be very wrong. Set price alerts.

Repooc17

There is no rush to buy a paid business class ticket. Heck, I don't even buy coach class ticket until a few weeks prior to departure; sometimes days even if the travel schedule is known. Just set an alert as suggested.

The only exception in buying early is when you can find mistake fares.

Also, the whole Tuesday/Wednesday offer better pricing than other days is not true.

jsloan

It's not generally true. It is frequently true and worth looking into in general. It's not true on this particular set of fares.

Repooc17

Pricing is based on fare rules and fare bucket availability. Airlines don't file cheap fares on a Tuesday/Wednesday for people to buy them on those days.

jsloan

Airlines absolutely do file cheap fares that are only good some days of the week, and those days are often T/W or T/W/Sa. You'll sometimes see fares that are good M-Th also. (The old thing about buying airfare on Tuesdays, on the other hand, thanks to airlines matching sale prices that come out on Monday, is a good 10 years out of date).

And that's even discounting the possibility that airlines can (and do) restrict discount availability on high demand days. This has been easy to see all summer -- due to all of the leisure travel, in the markets I was looking at, Friday and Sunday were the two most expensive days to fly domestically this summer, and it wasn't even close.

Quaker

Z fares, P fares... I have so much to learn! Where did you get the historical data?
Are there still no fees for canceling? I thought that was over. If not, that's great to know. The issue of course with these dollar amounts is I have to use it within a year, no? Or is that just the old policy?

HNLbasedFlyer

However, Tuesday/Wednesday tend to be more off peak days and hence cheaper fare buckets tend to be more available. Specific to the Hawaii market to the West Coast, Tuesday/Wednesday pricing tends to always be lower close in to booking versus Thursday-Sunday due to West Coasters taking long weekends in Hawaii as they snap up the low fare buckets.

jsloan

ExpertFlyer, a paid service, lets you view historical fare information. Since you said it had been $4000, I threw in a past date to take a look.

UA's business class inventory for paid (non-award / upgrade) tickets has five buckets -- J C D Z P, in order from most- to least-expensive. In order to buy a ticket, you need a fare and inventory in the bucket that matches that fare. What you're seeing is that UA has filed Z fares, but not P fares, so even if they have P inventory listed on the flight, there's no fare currently available that would let you use it. If they file a new P fare, and there were P inventory on the days you wanted to fly, you'd potentially get a lower price than what you're seeing now.

Correct, no fees for making changes. And, yes, you'd need to use the credit within a year, so if you don't expect that you would have another occasion to fly United, that'd argue in favor of waiting... but it's entirely possible that the fares never come down. There's just no way to know.

This. But also, it's not even necessary for anyone to "snap up" the low fare buckets. UA simply won't make them available if they don't think they have to. I've seen plenty of flights this year where inventory was a W or a V months in advance and never opened up.

zombietooth

Or when you can find PZ!

jsloan

definitely.

For the OP: PZ is a special inventory bucket used for upgrades. It's rare to find it, but when you do, you can purchase an economy ticket and then clear an upgrade immediately. All MileagePlus members are eligible to use it with a Miles+Copay award, but it does have its downsides -- if there are problems on the day of travel, and you have to get re-routed on another airline, you're likely going to be in economy. With a business class ticket, there's a better chance you can still end up in business class.