Married Pricing Weirdness or Combinability ?
 

Looking at flights HKG-(SFO/LAX)-PHX

Roundtrip HKG-PHX is $1400. (K on Intl, W on domestic)

Roundtrip HKG-SFO is $1000 (K)

Roundtrip SFO-PHX is $200 (G) on separate ticket - still on UA.

Why is it $200 more? Weird married logic.

This is how fares are filed -- between specific cities - not as an additive fare of the path to destination. Often times it works the other way -- where the round trip is cheaper than the points on the way...You can save $200 if you book it as two separate tickets -- but you give up the (significant) protection that one ticket provides....

For a domestic trip, I booked with multiple destination search, instead of one way. It saved me $150. This is close-in trip booked within two weeks.

It’s not married logic; it’s combinability rules.

You already have a broken fare, because it’s giving you a K to SFO and a W from there. So, either (a) the HKG-SFO K fare only allows end-on-end combinations with W fares or higher, or (b) none of the SFO-PHX fares below W allow end-on-end combinations with an HKG-SFO K fare (or, likely, any HKG-SFO fare at all).

You’re already getting a better price than they’ve published for HKG-PHX. You’re just not getting as good of a price as you would by buying two tickets. That’s common, and it’s an intentional pricing strategy that the airlines use to allow them to offer sale prices in some markets without offering them in all markets.

If connection was less than 4 hours, cheaper price was likely not due to additive pricing, but getting around married segment inventory availability (it was still pricing on a single fare component, but using individual flight bucket availability instead of married flight segment bucket availability). Example below shows where it is pricing a V fare even though there is no V availability when segments are married. If individual segment inventory and married segment inventory are the same on flights, there won't be any savings. This trick won't work on all airlines (delta.com won't let you use multi-city to book domestic connections less than 4 hours, or international less than 24 hours, to prevent people from getting around married segment availability with multi-city searches).


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...acb4ab8dab.png

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c555ba4ee1.png
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4ba3b3b5df.png

Google Flights seems to have some sort of deal with Delta where it will do a final married segment availability check on multi-city searches. Below it was initially pricing a $248 SEA-DEN fare with multi-city, but then changed it to $708 SEA-DEN B fare after the final segment was selected and it checked married segment availability. Google Flights does not seem to do this final check on UA and AA multi-city fare searches.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d64391adec.png


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...71a4ff6b11.png




https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7b790c9711.png

that is certainly possible but it already books into two separate classes K/W, which means they're not priced as a through fare/on the same fare component, unless UA files a booking code exception for K to be on W fare (or vice versa) which I'm doubtful

Is there a 4 hour limit for international to domestic connection?

United shows K class available for domestic but still listing it as W class (and domestic trip is in G class)

guess United wants to collect the domestic baggage fees for intl travel for the domestic leg

depending on where you are going, TPAC/TATL is 24 hours, Canada is 12, etc...

Pricing has determined breaking the fare at SFO is cheaper than a through fare in the same class from HKG to PHX, whether that's married or the fare is just higher between the city pair. Then it looks for the cheapest SFO-PHX fare but G fare is likely not combinable with a HKG-SFO K fare, and the next lowest combinable one is W.

All the above is assuming all segments are issued on the same ticket. You can find a TA to price/issue separate tickets for HKG-SFO in K and SFO-PHX in G on the same reservation/PNR but it is not recommended by UA as it can lead to online check in/change issues (i.e UA's website is not robust enough to handle multi-ticket pnr)

You can through check your bag to PHX for feee even on separate tickets. Not sure about the return

The limit is 24h00 for this particular connection. The lowest published fare from HKG to PHX is SLXNNJBI, a $1,440 round-trip (including fees). The website is automatically offering you a fare break in SFO because it is cheaper, and following the combinability rules of the fares.

Also not entirely sure how a TA feels about doing this when the only reason is to circumvent fare rules.

Right, I wasn't talking about OP's example (where 2 fares were obviously involved). I was talking about the domestic example given later (where there was likely only a single fare) and cheaper price was basically due to getting UA website to use invidividual flight bucket inventory instead of married segment inventory to pick appropriate fare. If searching one-way and roundtrip, the website will use married segment inventory to chose fares on connecting itins which is how they are supposed to be chosen.

nah it's perfectly legal/not breaking any carrier rules. It's still two separate contracts essentially so it's not really circumventing any rules

ahh i see now, makes sense

The last I heard, TAs had specifically been instructed (via jetstream) to avoid putting multiple, non-conjoined tickets into a single PNR.

yea that's why I said:
the official wording is "discourages", but not "strongly discourages" ;)

https://jetstream.united.com/#/sub-l...6000006V2vTEAS

Thanks - I bought 2 separate tickets connecting at sfo to save money. Bags are free anyways (gold member)

Similar experience here: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...rate-pnrs.html

I never knew that Combinability meant reading the fare rules. Now I do. Thanks!

It is a struggle for those of us in non-gateway cities. Years ago, it seemed that really did not matter too much and sometimes even better fares exist. Now, it seems a through-fare costs more than buying 2 fares (ideally on one ticket). I also remember when UA first started doing PE, PE fares between TPE and SFO were significantly lower than if you had an additional domestic leg in Y. I am not sure what it is now.