WineCountryUA

The upgrader has an underlying paid fare.

Can propose / suggest other outcomes but it needs to be a simple system. And hopefully logically consistent. And not be stupid (my rule).

Note for award cpu, the award ticket is ranked below the paid tickets in each status group.

econ

The CPU scenario makes sense since the award ticket in that case is for Y, so the comparison is between paid Y vs. award Y, and would definitely agree that paid Y should be above award Y.

Award J vs. paid Y (later upgraded to J) is the scenario that I was questioning.

WineCountryUA

I was suggesting that could go either way
1. Place a J/F Award at the bottom of Paid F/J fares and above Y paid but upgraded
2. Place all awards below all paid fares

The first "feels" fairer

jjmoore

Is there a published downgrade priority? I would think that the GAs employ your second option given simplicity, but I like the first option more, as it strikes me as more fair.

WineCountryUA

That is the question we have been discussing for the 12+ posts. I'm not aware of any and very much doubt UA would use the the published IDB approach. But there may be a policy (not published) in the computer.

lancelot21

A few weeks back, I was downgraded from IAH-SFO (a beautiful lie-flat Polaris plane...). My question: Am I due a partial refund on my ticket? The gate agent gave me a $1000 ETC, and the paid F ticket had only cost me an extra $200, so I didn't think about it until I read this thread. Reading the Wiki and thinking about it further, it seems I'm due the partial refund. I just put in a refund request on the website, but I thought I'd ask FT as well.

(I am not sure why I got a $1000 certificate instead of the "expected" $500. Possibly because I was a 1K on a paid F ticket? If I had to guess, it's because I didn't have a seat assignment. So when I came to the gate agent, the easiest thing for them was to see if I would voluntarily downgrade. I didn't look excited at the initial $500 offer, though I grudgingly accepted it. But then the agent said, I'm going to make it $1000.)

jsloan

Yes.

DELee

Wow - on a F ticket and as a 1K.

Bad agent!

David

cfischer

I would write to 1K voice. That GA need to be reprimanded and re-trained. UA needs to know about these bad apples. There are downgrade rules and pretty damn hard to see many options for a 1K on a paid F ticket to be at the top of the list

lancelot21

I don't know. I had switched onto the flight the day before--when they had at least one F seat available, even though the seat map showed full. So I suspect I was one of the few in F without a seat assignment. I realize there are rules and priority lists, such that I should probably have been spared the downgrade (though IAD-SFO will have a lot of status paid F flyers). But given that I was willing to take the compensation (and I was), it saved the agent the difficulty of finding, and the embarrassment of telling, the person in 4A (or wherever) that they were being sent to the back of the plane. If I'd objected to the offer, and said I'd rather keep a seat in F, then maybe they would have moved someone else, who knows.

bocastephen

Did you push back on the downgrade to make sure the agent attempted to downgrade others below your priority level? I would have made a stink and demanded a supervisor to the gate before accepting this without the agent transparently demonstrating why I was downgraded vs someone with lower/no status, award/upgrade, lower fare, etc.

HNLbasedFlyer

Thats not a published benefit and I’m not sure why you think an agent would debate with you. They are trained otherwise

lancelot21

I confess I didn't think about pushing back. They offered me sufficient compensation that I was willing to take it! I had paid an extra $200-$250 for the P fare, and got an ETC for $1000. I'm not willing to pay $1000 extra out of my pocket to fly in first. So even though I lost out on the lie-flat seat, it seemed like a good deal to me. (Note: I haven't heard anything back regarding my request for a partial refund.)

I think the "fairest" way to decide who to downgrade would be an auction. For example, ask every first-class passenger when they check in for an overbooked flight what compensation they would accept to be downgraded. Then they would be sure to get someone who was happy with (or, at least, indifferent about) the outcome. It would save UA some money, as well.

jsloan

UA is already trying that for denied boarding volunteers. It may be fair, but it's extremely detrimental to knowledgeable customers. It basically invents competition -- people who would never otherwise end up on the volunteer list see buttons for $200 / $250 / $300 and it seems like a great deal, undercutting an experienced traveler who knows that UA might routinely go to $500 - $600 in the same situation.

lancelot21

Just got an email telling me I was being refunded $93.67 for being downgraded IAD-SFO :-) The email didn't explain the calculation. But the extra cost for P rather than coach was something like $220. I had already flown in first on my short connecting flight to IAD, which perhaps they calculated at a cost of $126. So my refund was the residual.

Of course, I wouldn't have been willing to pay $126 to fly in first on the connecting flight. And it's a no brainer to pay $93 for IAD-SFO in Polaris! But still, it's better than nothing, and I would have forgotten about it if it hadn't been for this FT thread. So thank you all! Still, the major compensation for the downgrade (and which more than compensates me) was the ETC.

The auction scheme means that the person who least values the first-class seat is the one who gives it up. But I agree it would undercut the experienced traveler. I was a beneficiary in this case. I got $1000 for giving up the seat, because I was a high-status flyer without a seat assignment, standing in front of the gate agent, and the easiest thing for him to do was to compensate me enough to willingly take the downgrade.