wxguy

Can you SDC for a routing where an upgrade would be available? GS is usually pretty good at working that out for me.

jjmoore

Will see once the time approaches. SIN-SFO is also very difficult to get GPU'ed on too from what I have been hearing from colleagues that fly this route a lot. A couple of them are GS as well. At least it's a Saturday flight, but both of these routes (HKG/SIN-SFO) are filling up. Maybe I should have tried Sunday, but I bet business travelers will be more inclined to travel Sunday from Asia to the States....

Will see. I'm off topic... though I will say that I do not want to sit in the 10-across Y for a 13 hour flight..... no way. The premium they are charging for Polaris on that plane is ridiculous. They want almost $4000 in addition to what I have already paid in to upgrade into D, which is the cheapest option for Polaris. SIN-SFO routing is even more expensive.

notquiteaff

The only way I could rest in that seat would be if they offered gate-to-gate conscious sedation.

And work? I don't know how I could possibly use a laptop.

minnyfly

I've never been a Silver in my life.... And I'm not a "deep discount" customer. That's pure fabrication. Makes you wonder what else is around here.

Your pride in your importance a customer belies the facts. The vast majority of tickets and revenues are purchased in advance by price-conscience customers. That type of customer pays the bills. Your apparent type of customer helps put the gravy on top. Without the first type, there's no airline.

One-off price comparisons mean absolute ZERO, ZILCH, NADA, for how an airline is doing on a route.

bocastephen

Actually you have that backwards - the HVF in the front pay the bills, the Kettles in the back are the gravy. It's only recently that airlines started using different premium services to try and milk more money out of the gravy to bring them closer to the margins of the HVF in the front.

If I pay $500 for a one way F seat and receive all of my premium services included, I have a different margin than a Kettle who pays $200 for their one way Y seat and nothing else - but start adding $50 for bags, $50 for E+, $20 for priority boarding, and maybe buys $15 worth of F/B on board and at a much lower cost, hence their margins start to approach mine.

tryathlete

If you're a non-discriminating kayaker flying on a long TPAC, why fly UA 10
Across if AA has 9 across?

I've avoided the 787 economy seating for this reason (9 across instead of 8 across) and may be forced to do the same now on the 777. Ugh. If the flight is looking full and there's no chance for an empty seat, it's not likely I'll stay on that flight.

wrp96

Well AA has 10 across too. But the point is still good. If the choice is between a 10 across 777 and a 9 across 777, I don't know many that would choose that 10 across 777 all other things being equal.

notquiteaff

I guess UA is betting that many aren't checking the seat map, don't realize that it changed even if they flew the route before, don't know that other aircraft or carriers are better, or prioritize price or routing or corporate mandate over seat preference. There are, after all, many (non-discerning) travelers who fly the likes of Norwegian, Spirit, Frontier, ...

I am not part of "many".

kittiyut

I bet most of the people here are also not part of "many"

coolbeans202

There are a whole host of people that do zero research before making a ticket purchase. They simply look at the price and hope for the best. Almost monthly someone in my Facebook feed will post something along the lines of "PSA: Don't ever fly Spirit/Allegiant/Frontier, they are horrible and charge for everything." Well, no [poop]! Had you done any sort of due diligence you would've known that!

Eadward

Don't sit in 8L if you don't want to hear the galley noises