Is there any way to search on fare classes on UA?

Since everything's moving over to MP early next year I've been looking at booking a trip to HNL in January.

Thing is I want to buy a fare class that will let me use a SWU to upgrade on (I guess W fare minimum) -- is there any way to do this on UA.

On CO it's a breeze to do that type of search under advanced search and manually entering in the fare class.

 

You may have to call on this one. Use the travelocity tool to lookup the fare code: http://dps1.travelocity.com/lognlogin.ctl?tr_module=FARE

BTW, Check your settings on UA.COM to use 'expert mode' to show fare buckets.

 

I believe SWUs on domestic itineraries can be applied to any fare class (essentially they are CR1s), but I hav no personal experience with this. And I do realize UA has flights from NRT to HNL...

To get a SWU-upgradable fare class's, go to "advanced search" and choose "Systemwide Region 1" as the value for the "I would like to use this upgrade". Doesn't always work, though. Sometime United.com only spits out non-upgradable fares. Look for the "Upgradable Fare" (or something like that) in the search results.

 

You can use ita to find it then expert mode to book it on UA.

 

Thanks All, I'll check that out for Expert Mode on UA, didn't know about this.

I actually just booked it on CO website "W" fare class (cheapest fare class that a SWU can be used on) for middle of January.

It seems that for OnePass while it is ending on December 31, 2011 -- that as part of the "wind down" in the first quarter you'll still get mileage on your onepass account until they formally "merge" them together sometime in the first quarter.

I just hope they actually do deposit the CR1's and SWU's into OnePass still this year "mid-year" or so like they said they would do.

 

When you check on flight availability, click on "advanced options" (or something like that). One of the choices you can then make is whether you want a fare on which you can use an SWU. It will then not give you a fare below W, but note that doesn't mean the upgrade is confirmable.

If you wish to query for a specific fare class very often, you probably need to subscribe to a pay service such as ExpertFlyer or KVS Availability Tool.

 

Thanks for the info, I have to say it would be a lot easier if they implement the functionality from CO's website over to UA's when they "merge" the FF program.

I'll be posting that in the other thread on the change to MP.

Thanks all

 

Well, one could argue that the average traveler shouldn't have to really know much about the fare classes that are upgrade-eligible. They should just specify that they want to fly from X to Y on this and that date and use a SWU to upgrade. The website should then figure out what the appropriate fare class is and offer the appropriate flights. I suspect that's what went into the current design.

Now, obviously they didn't do a perfect job. For starters it's buggy, as I mentioned earlier in this thread. And then they should also take it to the next step and show which upgradable flights are actually confirmable at booking and which require waitlisting and praying.

 

Sure I agree, and that's why CO just puts it in as a "Advanced" feature for people like you and I

 

There are free services that let you run such queries quite reliably. Mine is one of them.

 

While the "name" of the new program is MP, there is no definition of the program and this is like to have zero impact on the booking system -- which is rumored to likely be the CO system. So this announcement probably provides little insight into the future.

 

Actually this is confirmed, not rumored.

The bit that is still officially a "rumor" even though it is slightly less guarded than Mileage Plus staying the name is that co.com will be the surviving site. That hasn't been announced publicly yet but I'll take any and all bets on that one not happening. I've had multiple people internal to UA say to me that is going to be the end result but it isn't in a press release yet.

 

If it's a domestic ticket, you don't have to have a W fare class to use a SWU to HNL. Any paid fare class is good for a SWU to HNL if it's domestic itinerary. You could even use a CR1 instead of an SWU to HNL on a domestic itinerary. No need to search for a specific fare class in those instances.