I was looking at pricing on united.com. Economy was like $250, but first class was $344, so I was sold. I always just search 1 adult when pricing stuff out.

But when I went through it for real, using 2 adults, it said $488. I was like wtf, so I went back to 1 adult and it said $344, then I noticed the 'only 1 left at this price'.

So, being curious, I purchased the single ticket at $344, then went to purchase a second, and it was $488.

In a nutshell, if I would have purchased 2 on same Itinerary, it would have been $488x2 = $976.
But by purchasing two singles, it was $344 + $488 = $832. Not an enormous difference, but the principal idea is that if there is just 1 cheap rate left, and you are purchasing 2, you won't get the last cheap one then the more expensive.. you pay the expensive rate for both.

Seems I've noticed this 'only 1 left' on southwest as well.. wonder if their system works the same way.

Moral of the day; If you search using 2+ adults, you may never even know that there may be cheaper tickets in a quantity lower than what you searched. Always search using 1 adult.


This would be similar to a hotel having a room say for $100 on a thursday night, and $200 on a friday night, and you searching thurs/fri and it saying the two nights are $200 ea = $400. But if you purchased each night separately, you'd pay the $300. It seems kinda scandalous honestly!

This is very annoying - I run into it all the time. Today at doing quotes - 2 flights on United were reasonable (it was a bundle deal with resorts) - for 2 people it was like $4800. I kid you not adding the 3rd person jumped it over $7k. Like WTH. They definitely do not give you the first two people at the lower price and then the 3rd at the higher.

Same thing happened to me years ago with Southwest and the price was not averaged so I had to purchase separately.

What we do when there is "1 ticket left at this price" is log in and each book 1 adult and go through the process simultaneously. It's worked every time and we both get the lower fare.

Sometimes airlines will release only a few seats per day at a certain price. Next day or so, they release more.

blindey said:

---

What we do when there is "1 ticket left at this price" is log in and each book 1 adult and go through the process simultaneously. It's worked every time and we both get the lower fare.

---

I was wondering if this would work! Obviously there may be an issue if you go after the same seat.

Thanks for the tip OP! I always search for 2 adults.

The only problem with this scenario is that you're not on the same itinerary so, let's say there is a flight cancellation and they have to reroute you or something, you could wind up on different flights.

I fly United and Star Alliance to Asia quite a bit. I notice the prices will fluctuate quite a bit, often jumping up for 24-48 hrs before dropping back down.

Actually never happened to us but that may be because we fly out of Houston and almost exclusively take direct flights (time/value of money regarding connections situation). And that includes some long haul international flights.

gvine07 said:

---

blindey said:

---

What we do when there is "1 ticket left at this price" is log in and each book 1 adult and go through the process simultaneously. It's worked every time and we both get the lower fare.

---

I was wondering if this would work! Obviously there may be an issue if you go after the same seat.

Thanks for the tip OP! I always search for 2 adults.

---

why would you both need the same seat?

blindey said:

---

Actually never happened to us but that may be because we fly out of Houston and almost exclusively take direct flights (time/value of money regarding connections situation). And that includes some long haul international flights.

---

I go to the USA about 4-5 times a year for work. 1-2 times a year, my wife or kids might accompany me but, I'm on a different itinerary because work paid for my flight but I paid for my travel companion out of my own pocket. And even though there is a nonstop from Houston to Sydney, it's not necessarily the cheapest flight so, one of us might wind up on a different flight anyway. But, once you get into a rerouting situation, the airline is the one calling the shots unless you're lucky enough to get through to a live person and have status like 1-K.

Last year, we were flying out of Roanoke, VA back to Sydney and were faced with the option of a 24 hour delay, or, rent a car and drive to Washington Dulles. Luckily, I was 1-K and got that all taken care of on the phone. And luckily we were on the same itinerary.

I meant if you were both getting the "last at this price" and both selected the same seat at the same time. I don't know if that is possible, but if it was the airline would obviously have to move one of you

It's not possible. I've had the situation before where you get ready to pull the trigger and the seat is no longer available at that price.

gvine07 said:

---

I meant if you were both getting the "last at this price" and both selected the same seat at the same time. I don't know if that is possible, but if it was the airline would obviously have to move one of you

---

If you are doing this with someone, like your spouse, why would you both select the same seat?

You wouldn't - not on purpose. I was just thinking about how you could screw up booking one at a time.

HollywoodBQ said:

---

It's not possible. I've had the situation before where you get ready to pull the trigger and the seat is no longer available at that price.

---

I don't think it was specific seats at cheap price. It's just an overall number of seats they sell at a cheap price.

In my case it was first class ; it's not like 2a was cheap and 2b wasn't. I could have picked any seat at the cheaper price, then that price point was gone.

I should have used the word "fare" instead of "seat".
I was responding to the previous poster using his/her terminology.

Websites will frequently say "only 3 seats" left at this price. Obviously, it's not seat 2A or 17F or whatever but rather the fare they're referring to.

Not related to United but my pet peeve with the Qantas web site is that if I look to book a specific seat and have a problem somewhere in the purchasing cycle, when I return to the site a few minutes later, it shows that the seat I selected is reserved (because it hasn't been released from when I tried to buy it a few minutes earlier) so I have to come back the next day to complete the transaction - and of course hope the fare is still available as well as that specific seat.

I had a deal one time on I think United when I was trying to use miles that it told me it was 75k miles for what I was trying to book and it would be that way all the way through until I hit "purchase" and then it would fail and tell me it was 350k miles. And if you searched for the next 30 minutes or so it would be the higher price and then it would go down again. It took me a few weeks of calling and working with the service techs and managers until I finally had one of them try to book it for me and see the change of price and then stayed on the line long enough to see it go back down that they gave me the lower cost. Totally worth it for first class round trip international for me and my wife. Just a bit of a pain in the ass.