then again I could be wrong but I am sure someone will correct me.....not up on American speak

I gave up after 50 minutes.

Tickets are normally built as "city pairs" A to B and back to A.

A "fare break" to me is splitting the pair up

A city pair can consist of multiple legs and sectors as well, so you can "break" in between giving you a "stopover", same origin and destination but alter the travelling dates, splitting the revenue.

flyertalk.com/forum/united-mileage-plus-pre-…

I am not sure in what contex you are using this phrase. Perhaps you could be more specific if the thread above does not have the information you are seeking.

Well I Googled and came upon this from AA.

http://www.aa.com/i18n/Tariffs/AA1.html

It appears (to me but I'm not an expert) to be a point at which you can force the pricing of a ticket (hopefully) for the purpose of getting a better fare.

Here's an example of an itinerary where my company agent tried lots of pricing options -

PDX-(via SEA-FRA)-DEL, BLR-(via FRA-SFO)-PDX

By applying a break at FRA (she said "let's try breaking it there") on both the outbound and return, she constructed a fare out of a round trip PDX-FRA and an open jaw FRA-DEL/BLR-FRA. All the flights were still on one ticket, issued by United but apart from the domestic legs all flights were on LH. It was if I recall about $400 less than priced as a PDX-FRA round trip.

Very informative.

I flew PEK-SFO-IAH. I could have paid $350 more for a through W fare, or I could fly Q, break the fare in SFO and continue in Q to IAH. Two Q's broken in SFO were cheaper than a through W.

That's my interpretation.

Thanks all.

Gracie, the terminology is from both AA's and UA's rules and restrictions sections.

On my last call, the UA guy had never heard of it, thought it wasn't a UA term, didn't know how to spell it, didn't know how to look up UA's rules, and said he didn't have access to that part of UA's website.

After much consultation with unknown entities, he said fares can change from day to day, depending on circumstances,.... No kidding. Very enlightening.

I'll try for a supervisor next time I have time and patience to spare.

"and said he didn't have access to that part of UA's website. "

not surprised I had to go through hoops to get to it or was that AA's site.

if he didn't know I would say UA need better hiring/training policies. There are plenty of unemployed people with brains out there who do have the ability to answer a phone without prior call centre experience