While it may be an anomaly, I wonder if United Airlines is deliberately tightening MileagePlus space on connecting flights in a way we have not previously seen in which pricing for multi-flight itineraries will compound or become additive?

Is United Airlines Moving To Compound Pricing On Multi-Stop Itineraries?

Most of us who keep up on the latest trends in redemption pricing know that United Airlines has employed married segment logic for years on award bookings (I offer a primer on so-called “Married Segments” here). In short, when two segments are married it means you can book the two flights together, but not separately (at least at the same price point). Married segments exist to control fares and award seat allocations between an origin and destination.

For example, United might charge 15,000 miles for a one-way ticket from Des Moines – Denver – Los Angeles but charge 22,500 miles if you are just booking Denver – Los Angeles (the very same flight). Why? Because United enjoys a competitive advantage by offering the most nonstops between Denver and Los Angeles and therefore can command a premium for nonstop service. But flying from Des Moines is more competitive, with each of the network carriers offering one-stop connecting options. The lower price is meant to incentivize you to connect with United as opposed to with American or Delta.

Up until now, we’ve seen married segment logic at work in a way that saves you money…two flights booked separately may not have saver space, but when booked together they might. This week, I’ve seen something all together different, almost the inverse or reverse of married segment logic.

So what is compound pricing? Additive pricing? Inverse married segment fare logic? Perhaps it is best if I demonstrate with an example, indeed the very example I encountered.

I had to fly from Burbank (BUR) to Chicago (ORD) and wanted to book on United via San Francisco (SFO) in order to get a lie-flat from SFO-ORD. The price was 43.8K miles in economy class for the itinerary I wanted:

But if I booked each flight separately (which I ultimately did), there was saver space. BUR-SFO was 12.7K miles:

and so was SFO-ORD:

My understanding of United’s fare logic is that if there is X (or XN) space on both flights, and it is a published routing (and BUR-SFO-ORD is certainly a published routing), it should price as a single award…i.e., both segments should have priced at 12.7K miles total.

But instead, when booking together there was no X or XN space, hence the “reverse married segment” logic. Thus, the two flights booked separately were 12.7 + 12.7 =25.4 while if booked on a single PNR the same flights on the same dates at the same time were 43.8K miles.

Odd, ins’t it? And a little disturbing if United will start pricing some (if not all) domestic awards additively. Part of me thinks this was a glitch since you can see the screenshot above there was a later BUR-SFO-ORD combo with XN that priced at the expected 12.7K.

I say “expected” because United no longer publishes award charts, so any discussion concerning pricing is more about patterns rather than any published rubric.

CONCLUSION

I realize this post was a little technical, but I hope it was clear…the bottom line is that United seems to be pricing some award additively, where two segments might have “saver” award space (X or XN) when booked separately, but not when booked together, even when the combined flights form a valid routing.

So mark this as developing, but it is not a comforting trend.