Fare classes mostly zero'd out
 

I know historically one ways from Asia -> USA are more expensive than one ways from USA -> Asia. However, I'm looking at TPE -> SFO on 01/04/2025 and everything is zero'd out, even full fare J. Only Y9/YN9/B9 is available. Can someone enlighten me and explain why? I'm assuming it's not a bug and that this is done deliberately to stop people from booking one ways departing TPE to SFO nonstop.

Three possibilities IMO:

1) Flight is very full and sold out up front, which I'd say is unlikely. How does the seatmap look?
2) UA is toying with canceling the flight during an upcoming schedule change and wants to restrict bookings so that it doesn't have as many displaced pax to reaccommodate.
3) A random glitch. It has happened to me before, and within a few days inventory goes back to normal.

1: Seatmap isn't fully empty but far from full. About 8 booked in J, 4 in PE, and a couple dozen in Y.
2. Would TPE->SFO really be cancelled? UA 871/872 have been consistently present in UA's schedule for as far back as I can remember (2015).
3. I thought it would be this but it's been like this for a week+ now. I guess I can wait another week. :)

I would chalk it up to #3, or something else I can't explain or think of right now. You're right that 871/872 are a near lock to operate; I was thinking you might be looking at the newer 853/852 pair. And to be clear, you're talking about January 4 not April 1, right? There can be extra inventory weirdness at the very end of the schedule.

Yes. January 4th. The day everyone tries flying home from the holidays :) I was thinking maybe they think this flight will sell out so they keep it Y fares only.

Tons of fare classes (as one would expect) are available if a round trip is booked.

Oh, then probably some POS restrictions on TPE-originating pax. This kind of stuff is becoming more commonplace in airline revenue management.

This seems to be similar to this: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...ay-ticket.html

It's more complicated than a POS restriction because in the GDS, I see the flight as J0 no matter how I query it. Wonder if UA is testing more advanced inventory rules only applicable to direct channels. Curious if a more experienced GDS user can get 872 to show J space.

Matrix prices the round-trip returning in D so I don't think it's NDC, must be something I am missing.

Got it to show down to “D” by searching TPE-LHR

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e298646c7.jpeg

I have found P inventory on international flights, specifically ex-DUB to be nearly impossible to find. I’ve been checking the last weeks of August and beginning of Sept for months and zip nada for P. Even Z is hard to come by.

I just bought a P-fare trip BOS-MNL/MNL-KUL(BR)/KUL-TPE(BR)/TPE-BOS for under $6K (end of July travel). #winning