SHUPirate1 From United States, joined Sep 2003, 3515 posts, RR: 27 Posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 2 days 7 hours ago) and read 1796 times:
OK, I'm planning a huge (300+ people needing to fly in) event near Chicago's O'Hare Airport in mid-to-late August, and need to fly everybody in, preferably on one airline. That said, the LAX-ORD airfares on UA are 253.40 from LAX-ORD through LAS (obviously all legs on Ted), and 336.70 from LAX-ORD nonstop...now, I understand that it costs more to give the passenger greater convenience, but 83.30 less to connect in Las Vegas, which CLEARLY isn't a United hub (although it seems to be the ultimate Ted spoke, with their only other UA flights once Ted is fully phased in being 3 prop flights a day to FAT and 3 to PSP)...does it not seem just a LITTLE strange?
Burma's constitutional referendum options: A. Yes, B. Go to Insein Prison!
Leskova From Germany, joined Oct 2003, 5955 posts, RR: 73 Reply 1, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 2 days 7 hours ago) and read 1731 times:
SHUPirate1, have you already phoned UA and spoken with their group reservations? With that amount of people flying in, they're bound to cough up something... the largest groups I've ever dealt with was around 30 pax (though that was for intercontinental long hauls), and most airlines gave me quite good rates on those (always depending on how full the flights are without the groups).
Other than that - well, I guess the $83.30 can be considered the "convenience surcharge"...
Deltaflyertoo From United States, joined Nov 2000, 1251 posts, RR: 1 Reply 2, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 2 days 7 hours ago) and read 1660 times:
you should just charter a flight, you are looking at paying $76K, call UAL and see if they can do a charter instead for 1/2 the price. If not, call ATA, Ryan, the usual suspects in that field and see what they can do.
Ual777contrail From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 3, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 2 days 7 hours ago) and read 1604 times:
SAD That if there is a group rate of 300+ people and they are all on the same plane? They wont get the best rate. UAL And others will sell a a grip of cheap seats but the rest of the plane will have to meet the rest of the budget for that aircraft.
a few years back and uadc8 knows this, a group of 80 kids went from ORD-PEK to play baseball in Beijing, they wanted to get the whole coach section of a UAL 777 but had to go through SFO on ANA or someone.
I would call the group desk, but I bet it will be expensive on anybody you fly.
plus shupirate, why would you choose UAL? Aren't you always bashing us?
MaverickM11 From United States, joined Apr 2000, 10361 posts, RR: 43 Reply 4, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 2 days 7 hours ago) and read 1570 times:
"you should just charter a flight, you are looking at paying $76K, call UAL and see if they can do a charter instead for 1/2 the price. If not, call ATA, Ryan, the usual suspects in that field and see what they can do.
"
There is nooooooooooo way they'll do it for half. I bet you couldn't get a 300 person charter roundtrip for $76K. It's about $60K for half that group to go roundtrip CHI/LAX
AirlineFanatic From United States, joined Mar 2004, 222 posts, RR: 0 Reply 5, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 2 days 7 hours ago) and read 1522 times:
SHUP, you have to also take into consideration that you could not book $300 people on the lowest fares as they are capacity controlled. So, charter might be your best bet. It will be interesting to see if UA Groups desk will be able to do anything better than you could by charter.
RoseFlyer From United States, joined Feb 2004, 5274 posts, RR: 17 Reply 6, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 2 days 6 hours ago) and read 1422 times:
Chartering is almost never cheaper than working with the airline for a group rate when being flexible. They would probably try to put a group of 300 on 4 or 5 flights spread out through the morning since UA has almost hourly flights LAX - ORD. They will probably give a good deal if it is not busy holiday period. They do it all the time for the big universities when they send their marching bands and teams across the country for games.
I design airplane parts for a living and am that guy that mechanics hate and blame for everything... the Design Engineer
SHUPirate1 From United States, joined Sep 2003, 3515 posts, RR: 27 Reply 8, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 2 days 5 hours ago) and read 1236 times:
ROFL...all 300+ people wouldn't be coming from Los Angeles...if they all were, that would kind of defeat the purpose of having the event halfway across the country...I'd be smart enough to just have it in LA...anyway, my question wasn't about the mass of people, but why UA seems to have an $83.30 premium on a trunk nonstop, versus connecting in, of all places, Las Vegas...BTW, I'm considering both UA and AA for this (and I'll likely go with AA as this is a basketball event, and trying to cram a 6'10" basketball player into a 31-inch pitch, barring E+, would be more like paying for death by suffocation)
Contrail: I love UA to death...in fact, I use UA and US almost exclusively...I just am somewhat concerned about their financial health...seriously, if both UA and US were to go under, I might find myself sitting on runway 31L at JFK waiting for a Lufthansa 747 to run me over (I chose LH because of the Star Alliance partnership)
Burma's constitutional referendum options: A. Yes, B. Go to Insein Prison!
Leskova From Germany, joined Oct 2003, 5955 posts, RR: 73 Reply 9, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 2 days 4 hours ago) and read 1168 times:
SHUPirate1, I told you yesterday that I'd join you on that runway - and I'm sticking to that...
Anyhow, as I've mentioned before, I guess it really is that more or less typical conveniance-surcharge (not that that specifically really exists, but it's just what I call it)... also, since the segments through LAS are on TED, I'd guess that that probably also accounts for some part of the lower fare.
Nonetheless, I'd still contact the group reservations desks of UA/AA or any other airline that can offer the routes you need - maybe they'll have some type of "event"-fare for you... or, if the groups coming in from the different cities are above 10 pax each (which, with 300+ pax seems quite likely) you'll still get group fares.
Meister808 From United States, joined Jan 2000, 949 posts, RR: 2 Reply 10, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 2 days 4 hours ago) and read 1154 times:
Well, just because you are bringing people from a lot of places doesn't mean that you shouldn't call them and check for a group rate. 300 people is enough to get them to do most anything cheaper, I would think.
-Meister
Twin Cessna 812 Victor, Minneapolis Center, we observe your operation in the immediate vicinity of extreme precipitation
Continental From United States, joined Jun 2000, 4958 posts, RR: 19 Reply 11, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 2 days 1 hour ago) and read 984 times:
Heh, I'm flying UA on April 30th. It will take me MSP-DEN, DEN-LAX, LAX-ORD (747-400!!) and ORD-MSP for $110!! I would've paid that, but travelocity screwed up and I got it for free!
SHUPirate1 From United States, joined Sep 2003, 3515 posts, RR: 27 Reply 14, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 1 day 21 hours ago) and read 638 times:
Thrust-are you referring to routes between hubs or focii (such as, for example, STL-LAS-LAX) being that much cheaper than flying nonstop between STL and LAX, or are you simply referring to ridiculous airfares...I'm simply referring to the fact that the "convenience surcharge" on the LAX-ORD flight is nearly as much as the price of a round-trip ticket from ORD to DTW on United, particularly when LAX-ORD is a trunk flight for UA, and LAX-LAS-ORD is a hub-spoke-hub routing...
Burma's constitutional referendum options: A. Yes, B. Go to Insein Prison!
Sccutler From United States, joined Jan 2000, 3828 posts, RR: 23 Reply 16, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 1 day 19 hours ago) and read 444 times:
Don't make the mistake of assuming all AA aircraft are "More Room" equipped; they've been quietly reinstalling seats on some aircraft, as I discovered to my great dismay recently. Ouch!
...three miles from BRONS, clear for the ILS one five approach...
Aloha717200 From United States, joined Aug 2003, 3468 posts, RR: 12 Reply 18, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 1 day 19 hours ago) and read 386 times:
United's pricing is retarded.
Pricing SLC-LAX, if I had a connection in DEN, UA priced it as over $1300! But if I connected in SFO, it was $371.
It seems like...UA will give you this ridiculously high price if you actually select each part of your itinerary based on schedule. But if you go with the itinerary UA WANTS to give you, it will be priced much lower.
Really stupid and it makes me feel like UA wants to cheat me out of money just so i can have the best possible itinerary. I tried tricking the system once....selecting flights I DIDNT want, so that the flights I did want would show up as the "lower fare options", but it didnt work.
COAB767 From Guam, joined Nov 2003, 1377 posts, RR: 12 Reply 19, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 1 day 19 hours ago) and read 385 times:
If your gonna fly 300+ people out to ORD, I would suggest chartering an aircraft possibly a 747. With that many people no way they'll fit on one narrowbody flight.
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Leskova From Germany, joined Oct 2003, 5955 posts, RR: 73 Reply 20, posted (4 years 7 months 1 week 1 day 17 hours ago) and read 301 times:
COAB767, he already mentioned that they're not all from LA, so chartering a B747 doesn't really make sense...
Aloha717200, it might seem "retarded" - or, to put it friendlier, strange - at times, but - believe me - it makes sense: in the case that you mentioned, I'd guess that either the SLC-DEN or DEN-LAX was really full, so they had to use a high fare... another possibility would be that the routing SLC-DEN-LAX is actually simply not permitted (SFO is a bit more "en-route" than DEN is), so you didn't really get a SLC-LAX fare, but two combined oneways (SLC-DEN and DEN-LAX), which could also explain the high price.
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