Artpen100

It just occurred to me, whether intended or not by UA, that I have not purchased an international flight in economy or business with UA since they stopped allowing EF to do R alerts. I often know many months in advance when I needed to travel. I'd set the alert and if I got one I would check and often buy a ticket right then. Sometimes, I purchased business (since R availability usually means the business price has dropped), sometimes bought econ and upgraded with miles. Sometimes, if the upgrade was available only one way, I'd pay full in cash to upgrade the other leg. I now check UA.com a few times, but if it is not available then, and there is a decent price on AF, DL, Air Brussels, LH or others, I will buy business from them. I am buying more business class TATL these days, though not with UA. Unless UA has quite offering much R space TATL (admittedly a possibility), then I've definitely purchased fewer UA TATL tickets than I would have in the past (usually twice a year).

DaviddesJ

I guess the question is why you won't give a single example or reference or framework for viewing this issue in your way. Again, if you look up 'data transparency' online, the discussion is nothing like what you're saying. Why is that?

Sure. Of course. Every business has to provide some data to some customers, otherwise how could you ever sell anything? If UA offers me a ticket at a known price, that's more transparent than if they said, "Click here to buy a ticket, and then we'll tell you, afterward, how much it cost." They could be even less transparent. But they are providing about the absolute minimum of transparency that they possibly can while still operating their business at all.

I have no "fear" they will provide even less data. What I do have is annoyance that they claim they are going to be transparent and then they take away access to information that costs them little or nothing to provide and is worth thousands of dollars to me. It's a negative-sum attitude, at best---the "benefits" they think they are getting by restricting access to information probably have negative value to them, but in any case certainly far less than what it costs their customers. Doing things of little or no benefit to yourself that have big costs to your customers, just because you can, is a central management failure.

It also means I'm way more likely to book international travel on other carriers. So they are shooting themselves in the foot, twice. Unless they really think that their goal is to give me upgrades but not have me be able to make effective use of them. That seems like a crazed marketing plan, to me.

Starman

So I hate to become a conspiracy theorist, but this could actually be true. Upgrades supported by miles are not that financially damaging to UA if they correctly control the inventory to avoid displacing paying customers, because the accrued but unredeemed mileage is a liability on the balance sheet that they need to burn off at some reasoned pace. On the other hand, upgrades supported by instruments are definitely a financial liability, as they yield no cash, only customer good will. If they calculate they can still keep most of the good will by giving out the instruments (GPUs, RPUs) but making them awkward to redeem, insuring that some or many expire without use, this is the best of all worlds for UA, although clearly not for the customer!

halls120

And if this is the case, it is a fundamentally dishonest business practice.

DaviddesJ

Yeah, but I think the converse possibility is pretty likely, if you give people upgrade instruments that are supposed to be usable for a certain benefit, and you make it impractical for people to actually use them, those people could be more frustrated and unhappy than before. Logically, getting 6 RPUs (which are worth around $400 each to me) is already a great benefit, even if they couldn't be used globally. (And searching for R availability is much less of an issue for domestic travel, for lots of reasons.) So if they just gave out RPUs at 1K then I might be fairly happy. Giving me GPUs, that I'm supposed to be able to use for more, but can't really, can work against them. Of course, everyone is different.

Starman

I'm not apologizing for UA in any way. I loved pmUA, hate COdbaUA. But I would point out that restricting redemption of free awards is a fundamental part of most FF programs, including M+ of course. Restricted redemption is disclosed in the fine print, but still surprises most Kettles, who can't understand why they can't get the nonstop transcon on Friday night for free. In this respect, how is restricting redemption of instrument supported upgrades any different? It's disclosed in the fine print. So I'm not sure I'd call it dishonest. It may well be STUPID, if it drives away more business than it attracts. Yet here we all are, the UA HVFs, moaning on FT, but, we're still here, so presumably most of us are still flying UA after the moans. Maybe they're not even stupid....

I'm beginning to believe limiting R redemptions is the primary purpose of making R bucket availability awkward to see.

Although, I have to say this morning I booked SJC-LAS-ELP on WN, whom I haven't flown in years, partly due to this aggravation over seeing R buckets. Normally to make this trip I'd drive from Silicon Valley to SFO (much longer drive, expensive parking, chaos at the airport, far more WXs than SJC), fly 500 miles out of the way to DEN rather than LAS, endure two CRJ flights to/from ELP, etc., and probably still not score an upgrade on SFO-DEN, even with an instrument, much less CPU.

Instead I booked WN, spent $120 less, will be 1.5 hours quicker east, 2.5 hours quicker west, avoid the CRJs, still get free bags. And for $25 more I bought "early bird checkin" which puts me in their equivalent of group 1, even though I have no status. Sure, there's no E+, but I'm on two 1+ hour flights each way, and avoid two CRJs on the trip. Hmmm, this could easily become a habit.

tryathlete

I've simply stopped buying W fares unless my flights clear at booking. It's refreshing how nice it is NOT to play the W fare lotto even with company money.

DaviddesJ

Wow, that's loyalty. If people are doing that, just for status, no wonder they want to be richly rewarded for it. But why not fly SJC-DEN-ELP on UA? It's probably easier to upgrade on SJC-DEN, even.

exerda

My problem is that isn't always possible, particularly with the reduced R inventory out there these days. I searched a month-long span for fall vacation, using every European gateway, and it was R=0 across the board. I do have faith a non-summer mid-week IAD-Europe on a widebody will eventually clear, but even trying to be as flexible as possible didn't give me a single option.

Starman

UA has decimated SJC service over the past few years. There used to be 4-5x DEN mainline, 2-3X ORD, and even 1X IAD, in addition to RJ service to LAX. Now ORD and IAD are completely gone, and there's 3-4X DEN, but one or 2 of these are CR7s and even CRJs. Connex to the SW from DEN from SJC now typically require a huge layover in DEN. Loyal as I am, I'm not going to spend 7-8 hours doing SJC-ELP or TUS. Thus the trek to SFO.

And of course, I don't even need the PQMs for status, if I'm willing to just be Platinum for life as a 2MM. I see a lot more of WN in my future.

DaviddesJ

Hmm. I picked a random date and the best SJC-ELP connections on UA were 5h18m, 6h36m, and 6h40m. The best SFO-ELP connections on UA were 4h55m, 4h57m, and 5h22m. So you're saving about an hour on average, but is that just trading an hour in traffic to save an hour in the terminal? Not so attractive.

WN and US do SJC-ELP in 4 hours or less, because their hubs are in the right place. That seems like an inherent advantage that UA can't really be expected to overcome.

piemel

With EF out of the picture is there any other tool (besides expert mode on .bomb) that I can use to find R fare availability?

WineCountryUA

EF has been out of the picture for a long time, KVS is the most recent target. There is no commercial alternative available. Even free sites were shutdown during this recent shutdown.

julp

Trying to look for takers on creating a new inventory search tool:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...e-ef-watt.html

exerda

EF sent out an e-mail yesterday that they have, through partnership with AA/US, reached an agreement to show all of their upgrade and award inventory.

Maybe UA ought to consider following suit, instead of following DL in a race to the bottom.