Buy two tickets, only one place in low fare bucket: both priced at higher bucket! - FlyerTalk Forums (2024)

drewguy

Join Date: May 2009

Location: Washington, DC

Programs: UA 1K 1MM, AA, DL

Posts: 7,474

Yes . . . though the real reason it matters is the inability to associate 2 PNRs for purposes of obtaining various common services, such as elite benefits, adjacent seating, etc. Provide that and then much of the rest becomes less relevant (e.g., would facilitate a "joint" reservation with two separately booked tickets, such as employer travel agent plus self-purchased family member)

jsloan

Join Date: Oct 2001

Location: Austin, TX

Posts: 21,919

This is trite and unfair.

UA can unilaterally decide to waive baggage fees for some passengers, as those baggage fees are collected by UA, and the waiver is not part of the ticketed allowance, so it doesn't need to be shared with other travel providers.

UA cannot unilaterally decide to allow two passengers on the same PNR to have different fares, because that information does have to be recorded into the PNR in their Global Distribution System and shared with other travel providers, from travel agents to other airlines. Even if UA wanted to offer this feature -- which I don't see why they would -- it'd have to be done industry-wide.

mherdeg

Join Date: Jan 2009

Location: LHR (sometimes CLE, SFO, BOS, LAX, SEA)

Programs: UA 1K

Posts: 5,902

A few months back I wanted to change a four-passenger BER-IAD reservation from one day in July to a different day. We were traveling on a W fare. When I looked at flight availability beforehand in expertflyer, and when I hit 'change flights' in the United web app, the availability shown from both sources showed that the flight was "Y9 H9 ... V5 W3".

Despite flight being V5 W3, the change-flights link offered to let me change my 4-passenger trip into W fare class. The change was completed successfully and we ended up with a 4-pax reservation in W. The flight was W0 afterwards.

I wasn't quite sure what was going on here, but it felt like United inventory was stretching a little and offering me the cheaper fare class on a multi-passenger itinerary. Without actually changing anything about the way multi-passenger airline records universally work, I still got a nice deal from United offering me a little extra flexibility. No idea how that happened but I was grateful. I wonder whether this was a real-life example of creatively implementing the kind of flexibility txp is wondering about in this thread.

paperwastage

Join Date: Jun 2012

Posts: 3,424

This is continuous pricing (as mentioned earlier in the thread)

NJSwamplands

Join Date: Apr 2018

Posts: 551

Kacee

Join Date: Apr 2013

Location: PHX

Programs: AS 75K; UA 1MM; Hyatt Globalist; Marriott LTP; Hilton Diamond (Aspire)

Posts: 57,043

UA actually deliberately exploits this "feature" by frequently opening only a single seat in the lowest available bucket. It can be extremely frustrating, as the fare jump can be substantial, particularly when going from say Z to D.

While it's true that having a single PNR with different fare rules could in theory add complexity, in many instances the only difference between the two adjacent buckets is the price. By definition, you're already meeting substantive purchase conditions (such as AP).

jsloan

Join Date: Oct 2001

Location: Austin, TX

Posts: 21,919

I mean, that's less UA "deliberately exploit[ing a] feature" and more UA RM being willing to sell one seat at the lowest fare bucket but not two.

Considering that UA allows off-PNR companions to share in most Premier benefits, it's not clear to me that UA is trying to be particularly punitive.

tennessetom

Join Date: Jul 2008

Posts: 872

Kacee

Join Date: Apr 2013

Location: PHX

Programs: AS 75K; UA 1MM; Hyatt Globalist; Marriott LTP; Hilton Diamond (Aspire)

Posts: 57,043

Not punitive, just revenue maximizing.

I see this so often, I have no doubt it is deliberate.

fwfdan

Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: NOVA

Programs: IHG Rewards Platinum, Marriott Gold, Hilton Diamond, UA/DL/AA Back of the plane...

Posts: 4,655

Not Unix or COBOL... it is the old IBM operating system that was specific to Airlines (later banks I think). The OS was ACP - Airline Control Program and then later TPF - Transaction Processing Facility that was designed for high volume processing. The applications (Pricing, ticketing, PNR maintenance, seat assignment etc) were originally written in IBM Assembler (ALC) and not COBOL. The PNR record allowed for flight segments that allowed a number of passengers and a booking code so all passengers in the PNR had to be booked in the same RBD (Reservation Booking Designator) though they could have different fares (for example different passenger types - ADT for the adult fare and CNN for the child, or ADT and CMP for a companion fare). So when you display the PNR you can see multiple passengers but only one itinerary.

A lot of the old limitations carried forward even with new technology and platforms.

For example - electronic tickets kept the paper ticket limit of four coupons (flight segments) per ticket. Anything with more than 4 segments still require multiple ticket numbers (conjunctive ticketing) even thought the old paper tickets are gone... (pretty sure that is still true)

Last edited by fwfdan; Mar 15, 2024 at 11:16 am

Lux Flyer

Join Date: May 2017

Posts: 2,305

I mean it's probably more test the waters at the lower fare as opposed to give away a ton of seats. Having watched quite a few flights it's pretty common as they feel the need to open lower buckets they will sit at [X]9[Y]0 for a day or two then go to [Y]1 before eventually expanding to [Y]3, and [Y]7 a few days later if no one bites when it is [Y]1. Additionally with their usage of continuous pricing it makes this less relevant if they put something at [X]9[Y]1 as long as you're booking through a direct UA channel as you'll get things like described a few posts previous where W4 for 5 passengers booked into W still.

Though that eTicket limitation was carried over to make conversion from paper to eTicket and vice-versa compatible as when eTicket initially came out you still had to support both, and what easier way to do that then make it the same structure.

fwfdan

Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: NOVA

Programs: IHG Rewards Platinum, Marriott Gold, Hilton Diamond, UA/DL/AA Back of the plane...

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Snipped quote:

Fair point. I am by no means a ticketing person but my understanding was that the e-ticket processing path split was very early in the applications and system processing of e-tickets (original ticketing, changes / refunds, revenue accounting and interline settlement etc.) and paper tickets had very little overlap and the limitations of paper tickets carried forward to e-tickets due to reducing the complexity of creating the e-ticket. And take that with a grain of salt as it was a long time ago (and to keep UA centric - I believe that CO was the first airline that required 100% interline e-tickets. )

cmculp

Join Date: Feb 2008

Location: Honolulu / DC

Programs: UA 1K /2mm / Marriott Lifetime Titanium , Hilton Diamond

Posts: 1,068

And it isn’t a United limitation….it’s a feature of the system that underpins ticketing worldwide.

Kacee

Join Date: Apr 2013

Location: PHX

Programs: AS 75K; UA 1MM; Hyatt Globalist; Marriott LTP; Hilton Diamond (Aspire)

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Acknowledging that we don't precisely know what drives the specific inventory calls, what I've seen is UA serially open X1, either in the original fare class or the next higher. I just had this happen last week - flight was Q1 when I checked, by the time I was ready to buy a bit later, it was H1. Along the same lines (but different facts and different manifestation), I've bought one ticket at P1 and it briefly goes to P0 before UA opens one more P fare (P1 again). In both cases, for a 2 pax PNR, UA is forcing one fare class higher.

WillTravel4Food

Join Date: Mar 2010

Location: Seattle, WA, USA

Programs: AS MVP Gold 75K, Marriott Lifetime Titanium

Posts: 1,627

They're working on this. It's called NextGen. Look it up. I'm sure you can also do a web search and find all sorts of materials out there on the programs successes and failures. There are also some systems and service providers that enable messaging between pilots and dispatchers and are especially useful for TPAC and TATL flights.