
United hides cheapest flights from passengers affected by Coronavirus - jrdngonen
https://bookwithcarry.com/blog/united-cheap-flights-coronavirus
======
benmarks
I’m not going to divorce my wife so I can run away with United, but I hope
this crew has a lot more than the single example to level these charges I hope
they are taking care buckets into consideration (right or wrong, changing this
at the IT level can’t be quick or easy). It will be curious to see others
replicate this and if so, United’s response, because that would be egregious
and certainly something for them to resolve.

~~~
tejasmanohar
Author here. Didn't realize this blew up on HN...

We don't know the cause of the difference in price, but we're comparing two
basic economy tickets here so if there's any fare difference, United should at
least clarify to the user why...

United and other airlines are running ads [0] on how users can book w/
confidence and get free changes so IMO, it's just irresponsible to have things
like this slip through the cracks-- intentional or not.

Overall, United has been consistently being anti-user with their policies
related to coronavirus. For example, making users wait 12 months to get a cash
refund [1] if your flight is delayed by them. Not a great look.

[0]:
[https://twitter.com/tejasmanohar/status/1239332916070473728](https://twitter.com/tejasmanohar/status/1239332916070473728)

[1]: [https://www.dansdeals.com/points-
travel/airlines/united/unit...](https://www.dansdeals.com/points-
travel/airlines/united/united-wait-12-months-refund/)

~~~
dannyw
My hunch: United is only showing you fares of the same class or higher, even
if a cheaper class is available

------
nostromo
Put another way: if you bought a flight from X to Y before covid-19, and then
you canceled that flight and received a voucher -- that voucher will still
only buy you a flight from X to Y, even though prices have dropped.

That seems... totally fair? Why should you be able to buy two flights from X
to Y when you canceled only one? I get that prices are now lower, but your
price is the same as when you originally bought the flight.

~~~
tejasmanohar
Author here...

Might be misunderstanding, but United is letting you change the route (X to Y)
and dates between flights-- that's not the problem. What's messed up here is
that United is not showing you the best prices available on the market when
you're actually changing your flight, and that's regardless of what route or
type of flight you're changing to.

To summarize, one of our users bought a flight and when they went to change
it, United showed us the "new flight's price" as something almost twice the
actual online rate if you search on United.com or GFlights.

~~~
cregaleus
Maybe it is a misunderstanding, but even if that is the case United deserves
the bad press for not clearly communicating what they are doing.

Why do they have to be shady about it and just hide them without telling you
why?

Maybe a little transparency would buy some goodwill and people would start
giving United the benefit of the doubt.

~~~
tejasmanohar
I agree with this. Transparency is key here.

------
atian
Personally, I think United is pricing flight changes in every way possible to
minimize losses for flights sold when Coronavirus was not taken into account –
maybe an incompetent management team.

What additionally suggests this is customers who are offered credit for flight
changes due to COVID-19 need to wait an ENTIRE year (12-months!) in order see
a refund back to original payment source [1].

[1]: [https://www.dansdeals.com/points-
travel/airlines/united/unit...](https://www.dansdeals.com/points-
travel/airlines/united/united-wait-12-months-refund/)

~~~
cameldrv
Which they won't see because United will be bankrupt by then.

------
taborj
How is this different than the price gouging the hand sanitizer guy did?

~~~
amiga_500
People should be asking that question on a lot of life's essentials, where the
"provider" removed it from the market only to sell it back at a higher price
having added no value.

~~~
sneak
People should also be reminded that nobody forces them to buy any product for
a price that they personally find to be unreasonable.

~~~
int_19h
Their needs force them to buy the product. If the only one who has it -
because they hoarded it - is somebody offering it at an unreasonable price,
then they're forced to buy it at that price.

~~~
sneak
Hand sanitizer is not an essential need for anyone; soap is more effective.
Nobody is forced by their needs to buy hand sanitizer.

------
mxcrossb
Interesting. I have a few tickets that qualify for free rebooking. My
experience was though that every future time slot costs more money. This has
left me paralyzed, because I’m not sure if I should just give up on the money,
or double down on the very high risk that we’re still avoiding travel for the
rest of the year.

~~~
dannyw
It's quite simply not true that every future time slot costs more money.

Try putting those dates in Google Flights and I'm sure that your "$1000"
flight is now... $700 or something.

------
irjustin
I'm sitting at SFO right now waiting to get on UA 1 back to Singapore so I can
go home.

My personal, anecdotal, experience defends United but it's not perfect.

Let's dive in -

1\. I was originally set to fly on Apr 5 on UA 1.

2\. Obviously I wanted to move it up, so I set it for Mar 24.

3\. In the process, I had a premium economy seat bundle that would not
automatically transfer.

4\. I called, 1 hour on hold. Moved days & seats no new charge. The price of
the new flight was cheaper by US$10, I did not see any money back.

5\. Today, Mar 15, I decided to go home on tonight's UA 1 flight.

6\. Called, 1.5 hours on hold, moved my date and my premium economy seat.

7\. I realized I had a bundled extra bag with my old seat. Normally not
refundable she said, but she would try. She tried, she got the extra bag
refunded no problem, saved me $67.

That whole list boils down to - I lost $10 in price difference but gained $67
back in a refund that I would not normally get.

Overall I'm very happy.

Everyone flying, stay safe and healthy!

------
zaroth
What if the difference is based on the fare code that the original ticket was
booked under, and the rebooking ticket must be made into the same fare code?

So a lower priced fare code is available but not for the rebooking process?

~~~
sricola
Yeah, lots of facts missing here. and the facts don't add up. I still think
the original itinerary was a round trip - and the total fare being shown is a
round trip fare. The author/CTO of the company this "blog" is on has yet to
clarify.

If the facts are fudged, this is shameful. Airlines are still terrible
companies, but this is shameful.

~~~
tejasmanohar
Even with the same fare class, the tickets sometimes cost more through the
change interface on United.com. We've added more detail to our post--
[https://bookwithcarry.com/blog/united-cheap-flights-
coronavi...](https://bookwithcarry.com/blog/united-cheap-flights-
coronavirus?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=united)

I can assure you that there was no intentional fudging here, and if there's
something we're missing, we'd be the first that would like to know it. Due to
all the discussion about fare classes, we've also included information in the
blog post about problems in the change flow related to that.

------
jchw
I genuinely can’t grasp the nerve required for this to have been decided and
put into place. It feels like nothing is too scummy to not happen.

------
tbrock
United is THE worst. I hope they go under and another airline places their hub
at SFO. They treat their customers like garbage.

~~~
lotsofpulp
They’re not going anywhere. They have EWR/SFO/DEN/ORD/IAD/LAX. I wonder what
could cause many of the big companies today to go under, other than their
whole product being obsoleted.

------
kevindong
Interestingly, the price of that flight is now sitting at $163.40.

[https://www.google.com/flights?hl=en#flt=PHL.SFO.2020-03-27....](https://www.google.com/flights?hl=en#flt=PHL.SFO.2020-03-27.PHLSFO0UA2132;c:USD;e:1;sd:1;t:b;tt:o;sp:2.USD.16340)

~~~
otterley
You now need to compare against the fare offer you receive if you try to
change an existing booking made during the waiver period. If the two prices
aren’t identical, something is wrong.

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pbreit
How is this virus related? Can anyone confirm this is new behavior or that
there is not an explanation?

~~~
tnuc
Being price gouged by airlines is nothing new, this is business as usual.

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sricola
Obviously facts are fudged here. The original itinerary is a round trip that
costed 491. With the return leg change, that cost went up to $596 (roundtrip).
And they are showing a one way costing 299. This is fake and the company is
looking for free publicity.

~~~
tejasmanohar
I'm sorry, but that's blatantly false. The original itinerary is a one-way
flight, not a round-trip.

I'll send the original receipt in a few minutes once I scrub all sensitive
passenger information.

~~~
tejasmanohar
Hey! Really sorry for the delay here. We've taken a step back and updated our
original post with a much more detailed example and explanation given the
response here [https://bookwithcarry.com/blog/united-cheap-flights-
coronavi...](https://bookwithcarry.com/blog/united-cheap-flights-coronavirus)

------
tgafpc2
"We here at Carry book a lot of travel." We'll apparently not. There's
literally 100 reasons why this would happen in the normal course of business.

