Cheap First Class Airfare Is There For The Taking

[short Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close short]

Thanks for your reply. I guess I left out some information. I will be flying from Boston. I have an unused ticket on United, so I'm planning to convert that one. Since I have to fly "coach", for business reasons, I'm looking for one of these "y-up" fares that was discussed a while back. The discussion totally confused me.

I believe the YUP fares are for just such a situation as yours. It was intended for business travelers who must show their boss that they flew coach when they really flew first. It books as a coach ticket with an upgrade.

With that said, I have no idea how to find this kind of fare. Some airlines will give you a free upgrade to FC of you book into full fare coach. This is possibly where you will find it. If you have some sort of status with United then this is very likely doable.

I would call United and have them look for tickets such as I discussed above. Forgoing the online booking might be worth it if you get what you want.

Short

[camachinist Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close camachinist]

Quick search function for YUP/QUP fares...

http://www.farecompare.com/search/yu...&nofilter=true

I used SFO as a sample gateway.

Pat

[mshatty Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close mshatty]

Pat,

Thanks for the link. It's great!

[camachinist Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close camachinist]

Below is a non-published link we mileage runners use...again, with SFO as the sample gateway. I sorted by PPM (price per mile), which is a common metric we use. Play around with it and the drill-down and let me know if there are any questions.

http://www.farecompare.com/search/fl...e=0&sortby=PPM

I can also put together a tutorial for ITA, but it'll take time. It's a back-end GDS access that is very powerful if used right. I've got a number of mileage runs coming up in the next week, so maybe I can do it while having downtime at the airports.

Pat

[lawren2 Malibu Beach Barbie & A Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close lawren2]

Below is a non-published link we mileage runners use...again, with SFO as the sample gateway. I sorted by PPM (price per mile), which is a common metric we use. Play around with it and the drill-down and let me know if there are any questions.

http://www.farecompare.com/search/fl...e=0&sortby=PPM

I can also put together a tutorial for ITA, but it'll take time. It's a back-end GDS access that is very powerful if used right. I've got a number of mileage runs coming up in the next week, so maybe I can do it while having downtime at the airports.

Pat

Pat that would be SO APPRECIATED!
Thanks for the offer.

[ArtsieAng Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close ArtsieAng]

Pat that would be SO APPRECIATED!
Thanks for the offer.

I second that. We would greatly appreciate your efforts. Thanks!

[camachinist Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close camachinist]

Once FlyerTalk comes back up on Friday, I'll get started. I'm doing another 7200 mile 3 hour turnaround Friday night so should have about 8-10 hours of internet access during the run. I need FlyerTalk for reference materials regarding coding. Hopefully, I'll be able to explain in simple English

Pat

[falmouth3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close falmouth3]

Thanks so much for the reply, Pat. I'm looking forward to your tutorial.

Sue

[camachinist Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close camachinist]

OK, here's a prequel...

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/di...dvanced-topics

If that is too much information to digest, try here...

http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/help

When I create the tutorial thread, I'll try to explain this stuff in ordinary English if applicable. In order to use this stuff expediently, one must become conversant with airline/travel related acronyms. On FlyerTalk, airports have 3 letters; you just have to know them, or look them up.

For example, on my run on Friday, I'm flying MOD-SFO-LAX-IAD-ALB-IAD-SFO-MOD. I'll break that down...
MOD= Modesto, CA
SFO= San Francisco
LAX= Los Angeles
IAD= Washington DC, Dulles
ALB= Albany, New York

There are airport guides on the internet. Find one I use ExpertFlyer, which is a subscription access to the GDS (the airline booking system) for such information.

On the above flight, I booked under fare code basis LRA7N7, with booking code L, which on UA is an economy class booking (read very cheap). Even the individual characters of the fare basis code have meaning, but are much too complex to discuss here. Knowing the fare basis code and its rules are very important when searching.

Anyway, start reading the ITA FAQ and I'll get a sticky thread going on that topic at some point during my trip.

Pat