trvlr64

I don't get it anymore. The US/UA codeshare definitely doesn't seem to be working IMO. After looking at the airfares, for my trip to Omaha in October, flying the US/UA codeshare or strictly UA, it's obvious that US is loosing.

For 4 different flight times that I researched, US is charging an average of $150 to $300 more for the exact same flights that UA is flying. Who is the baffoon in US that doesn't realize that people are not going to pay the extra money on US but fly UA exclusively and still gain mileage in their US DM account?

Guess I shouldn't be complaining. I gain the miles and segments flying on UA and US gets nothing. Oh well, their loss.

Side note.....UA gives me more flight options too for my trip to Omaha where as US doesn't. Guess they just want me to fly UA instead of them. And the UA website is much more user friendly when searching for flights now than it used to be. I hope the HP web people improve the US flight search option. US simply sucks next to UA and even HP's flight search function.

dhflies

I think different markets differ in the best pricing scenario. Yes, there have been times where I have booked a fare and it was cheaper to book the same flights through the UA website, but on the flipside there have been times when those same flights have been cheaper through the US website. I also have been able to find lower cost seats for other airlines through AA's website (booking them on that site has been a different story).

The moral - you still have to check multiple sites/search engines if you are looking for the lowest cost.

shell nyc

Don't forget that by buying a UA ticket, you don't get hit with the annoying $25 standby fee either!

US AIRWAYS FAN

This has been discussed before. I got my answer from a CP rep. The reason why sometimes you can get a flight cheaper on a code share flight is because UA buys a certain amount of seats at a certain price on the US flight. The same goes for US buying so many seats on say UA or JK (SpanAir). And the same goes for say Expedia ect, ect. There are a percentage of seats that will be sold at a V Fare, W fare and so on. If US runs out of a V fare first that does not mean that you can't find a V fare on a code share with UA or on another website say Expedia.

From what I have been told the code share is bringing in a good amount of money for both US and UA according to the CP agent.

NeoOfTheCRS

Its not just inventory issues. US is more often than not pricing the same flights on UA metal for up to 5 times the amount that UA is selling them for. Its just another symptom of the mis-pricing sickness that US has in too many routes.

Expect the code-share to unravel further. UA is going to withdraw more codeshared flights as the merger with HP unfolds. Quite simply there reallly is little benefit to codeshare tickets anymore. Barring any extraordinary price differences, I fly US on US metal and UA on UA metal. I may accrue US on UA and vice versa but that has nothing to do with codehared tickets.

sts603

I beg to differ with a lot of this.....

1.) Do we have evidence of a pull-back in code-share flights after the HP merger?

2.) In my experience I have booked more US tickets for flights on UA or a combo that were cheaper through US than vice versa.

3.) The code-sharing ticket arangement has an enormous advantage for flights such as PHL-ORD-DSM or even more so a flight like ITH-PHL-SFO-PDX where both carriers do not serve the destination and origin city.

4.) The reason for the price discrepency is quite clear as US Airways Fan noted. It's the same with every code-sharing agreement in the world to my knowledge.

timmymsmith

Earlier this year I got a ticket in First on mostly UA metal as a US codeshare for less than UA wanted for coach.

USFlyerUS

The CP agent is only partially accurate. UA doesn't "buy" seats on US. UA is allocated a certain number of seats to sell, and, if they sell them, US gets revenue for each US-operated segment (minus a booking fee). Now, UA and US CANNOT discuss pricing, so it's very possible US and UA will sell the same flight itinerary for different amounts. We can thank the DOJ for this. Also, UA may sell all the W fares it's allowed to yet US may still have W seats available, so booking a UA ticket will now be more than if you booked the ticket on US. This happens in reverse, too, and happens with NW-DL-CO. Bottom line, more often than not, the codeshare benefits me greatly.

Also, HP and US and UA don't overlap all that much, so I wouldn't expect too many codeshare issues post merger. In fact, at one point UA was looking to buy HP.

dirkman

Yep. I book at the last minute quite often, usually a few days, sometimes a few hours from departure, but often, tickets for UA flights at usairways.com are considerably more expansive than they are if I simply book the tickets thru UA directly. Even with personal travel, which is booked in advance, I have yet to see usairways.com offer me a better price on a UA codeshare flight than any of the other site.

My bad luck and poor timing, I suppose.

NeoOfTheCRS

About two weeks ago, I had on hold a ticket PIT-DCA-PHL all on US metal but UA stock that was nuked by UA, the agent was puzzled and consulted with their service director who said that on that Sunday at 12:01a, UA pulled back some codeshares on US as a result of the merger with HP

Now whether it really was merger related OR was just part of a regular realignment of the code sharing agreement is up for debate. BUT the agent came back with specific information that seemed credible so I believed her.