GrjApp

Is there some obscure restriction that prevents US from selling coach fares CLT-EWR oneway?

A while back I started looking for oneway fares CLT-EWR. This is for a date in Sept.

Initially all coach fares were listed as Unavailable (plenty of seats as per the seatmaps). I monitored this for two weeks or so and it stayed unavailable. F was however available, and not only that, but F flexible was less than F restricted. I even called US to ask what's the deal and they couldn't or wouldn't explain, just that that is what the system shows and I should just buy a F ticket or even a roundtrip coach and throw away the return. (LGA and JFK had no such issues, oneway coach there was available just fine.)

Today, almost a month later, I check just out of curiosity. Coach restricted is still listed as Unavailable, coach flexible is now available at about $300 more than F flexible which in turn is still less expensive than F restricted. For my desired date, the seatmaps are filling up nicely, but there are still a couple flights with plenty seats, and and everyy flight has the exact same pricing breakdown. I checked a few other random dates in Sept and Aug, same thing.

So I was wondering if there is an explanation for that, both re the Unavailable restricted fares but the discrepancy in restricted vs flexible pricing.

(As it is, I went with Delta to LGA since their fares dropped to $85 one fine day - when US stayed stuck at $127-$149 for both LGA and JFK. One would think that they'd at least match the competition to LGA but apparently not. Even AA was at $102 at that point. I think Delta may have more CLT-LGA flights now than US, or close to the same #.)

Biggie Fries

There are some folks here who think that US is very savvy when it comes to yield management, pricing and the like, and that there is a reasonable logic to the kind of thing that you have experienced -- even if it doesn't make sense to us, or fit with our idea of what would be in everyone's best interest.

There are others who think that the US IT is clunky and balky at times, and that the management thinking behind some of the algorithms (flexible vs. restricted pricing, for example) is incomplete, unsophisticated, and un-nuanced.

Pick your side. But no use seeking explanations from the US desks. They can be very helpful with a lot of things, but explaining the pricing system is not one of them. Nice, however, that they were willing to counsel throwing away an RT ...

joeyE

Don't know the dates you're looking at, but the DNC in CLT in early September could be playing havoc with certain routes. Why EWR in particular? No idea.

GrjApp

Yes, I was thinking DNC might impact it, but the one date is Sept 2 - in the middle of a holiday weekend and though right before DNC, it will take people away from CLT rather than into CLT. The other dates I randomly checked were next week and much later in Sept. I thought it was interesting that all those dates, even more/less than 21 days out, had the exact same pricing - coach restricted unavl, coach flex $665 or so, F flex $367 and F restricted $645 or so.

Why EWR and not LGA/JFK/any other NY airports, yes, who knows. I can kind of see that selling F is better than giving it away for free in upgrades, but I have to wonder abt the flex vs restricted logic. Makes no sense to me!

phlwookie

The only thing that I can think of that's "special" about CLT-EWR is that it's a US-UA hub route. As part of federal antitrust requirements put in place with the approval of the US-UA codeshare nearly a decade ago, the two carriers cann't codeshare on each other's aircraft for people traveling between those two routes - although they're partners, they have to compete. For instance, they can codeshare on PHL-SFO-PDX, but not just PHL-SFO. CLT-EWR should be subject to the same, but this shouldn't be generating the weirdness the OP is seeing.

ellinj

One ways on that date are coming up on Travelocity, I blame US IT. UA is cheaper though.

GrjApp

Those are the F fares, they show up on Kayak too, and are flagged as F on Kayak for both UA and US and as Business and F for UA and US respectively on Travelocity. The 699-ish fares are economy on both UA and US on those sites. I think it was like that in June too when I first looked.

So I checked UA's site just for kicks, sure enough they have the same fare structure as on US - F is the inexpensive fare compared to economy. Really weird.

Doesn't really matter at this point since Plan B was implemented, but it does make one wonder.

ibrandsguest

I've seen that happen as well between CLT-EWR. I used to buy only one-ways but it seems as if one-way fares from CLT to any NYC airport have gone way up (and are consistenly >50% of the roundtrip price) or have some kind of quirks.

JerryFF

There are plenty of seats available on US on Sept 2 from CLT to EWR. However, the one way coach fares are more expensive than the one way first class fares. First class is $366.80 whereas one way coach fares are $664.80.

UA has one way 1st class fares for $266.30.