Booking 2 single United tickets to save money

I was looking to book a United F ticket from Seattle San Juan for Necker Island a few months ago. I saw a flight through Dulles for something like $560 for 1 ticket. However, when I tried to buy 2 tickets, the price per ticket went up to like $800. Naturally, I wanted to try the 2 browser trick to see if I can just book a single ticket per window. I fired up AMEX travel on Chrome and incognito. Both tickets were showing $560. I got to the final submit on both screens. Pushed submit within 1 second of each other. The first one came back after a few seconds and BOOKED! The second window however gave me an error that the price had changed to $800. That sucked.

I then cancelled my ticket (which looking back, I didn’t have to do.) The trip was 11 days away and I already had a backup flight (that I was eventually going to cancel anyway.) Two days later, I said F it and booked my single ticket for $560. Then 3 hours later, I searched for a single ticket and lo and behold, United lowered the single ticket price back down to $560. I then booked my wife on her own AMEX account for $560. I most likely could have just sat on my first ticket for 3+ hours for United to drop the single ticket back down to $560 as well.

Lesson learned here – try to book 2 single tickets if the double seat ticket price is a lot higher than 2 singles

4 comments on “Booking 2 single United tickets to save money

  1. What was your reason for booking via Amex Travel? I’ve been under the impression that to avoid possible problems to book directly with the airline.

  2. good knowledge. I usually do the same this for southwest, but never thought of waiting for the 2nd ticket.

    in this case the price reduced down , but there is also a good chance only few 800$ tickets are available and booked by few others and only the next available bracket might be in 1000s…so usually don’t wait for the 2nd ticket

    1. True, but I had a backup plan if the 2nd ticket didn’t drop in price. Plus, this was booking F in cash, which isn’t as high demand as coach.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *