sbm12

More like UA wants you to pay more up front and then pay for extras. The goal of this product is to not sell it.

edcho

Funny how they target leisure markets (like MCO) but warn that families shouldn't purchse them. It's basically a fare hike for mostly everyone.

LIH

Exactly. One more step on bifurcating pricing by customer base. If you have any preference/need/advantage to flying UA on one of these routes your cost just went up.

sbm12

Correct that it is a fare hike for most pax. Not really "targeting" MCO so much as that's one of the earlier markets to get the product rolled out. I expect BE to cover the full domestic route network pretty darn quickly. This is not a targeted product, just a phased roll-out.

I'd strike "one of these routes" from that sentiment. This isn't going to be a limited/targeted deployment.

jjmoore

I'm particularly scared to see what the cost delta is between BE and lowest fare class for TATL and TPAC... probably a $100+ upcharge per r.t. ticket coming there too.

joban

I was looking at Frontier yesterday for flights to LAX. It would cost only $6 for a seat assignment.

LASUA1K

I almost booked an ORD-LGA with this fare by accodent. Why would they target that market?

fly18725

Because there is direct competition from Spirit.

jsloan

No, it has nothing to do with Spirit. As Seth just said, they're not targeting any markets; this is a phased rollout, and the phases are coming quickly.

UA is raising their economy fares in most markets and rolling out BE to obfuscate that. Their intention is to have UA flights look the same in OTA search results, but then to collect incremental revenue when passengers balk at the restrictions or when they have to check a bag.

If this had anything to do with matching low fares, they would simply have introduced a low-fare BE bucket with the usual pricing and availability rules. The way that they introduced it -- adding a differential fare from every existing fare in the market, all the way up to Y, originally -- wasn't necessary to compete with cheap fares.

On ORD-LGA, a search for 5/18 shows published BE fares from $52 (G-BN) to $380 (E-BN). They could make an argument about the $52 fare being a ULCC response, but not the $380 one.

Interestingly, whereas when this was first introduced, the BE fares went all the way up to Y; for example, that same 5/18 date for MSP-DEN, using a ticketing date of 3/16, shows BAA0AFBN (a $5 discount to BAA0AFEY) and YAA0AFBN (A $35 discount to YUA; YAA0AFEY doesn't seem to exist). If I change the ticketing date back to today, the highest BE fare is MAA7AKBN, a $15 discount to MAA7AKEN. In fact, none of the refundable fares in that market currently have a BE equivalent. I wonder if this is a response to some negative feedback? (It definitely contradicts their original statement that BE fares wouldn't be capacity-controlled, but I doubt anyone's going to shed tears over this).

jjmoore

Checking bag... yes. There is no option to even purchase E+ or a seat assignment, or any other amenity that is not offered as a part of BE.

BE is going to make many people angry, especially those that have purchased a $700 r.t. hub-hub unknowingly in the BE bucket.

This is the worst fare increase strategy I have ever seen. Worst. At least our corporate travel agent has blocked these fares and I cannot even accidentally book one.

emcampbe

Just curious...where did you almost 'accidentally' book a BE fare. I hope not on UAs own site. I suppose it's not particularly difficult for one to not pay attention to the fare name on the top of the column there, but I find it hard to believe anyone could 'accidentally' do it with the popup that comes up, the box you have to check to accept you agree to the terms, and then have to click the button to proceed.

UA is pretty upfront about that, so don't really have much sympathy for those who go through all those steps, and still don't know.

I guess the question is: How do the OTAs handle it. Is there a warning. And do they offer an option before you purchase, to purchase the regular economy fare instead of the basic.

jsloan

Right -- I expect people will "balk at those restrictions," as I said.

I expect the same thing, and, yet, so far, nary a peep in this thread. No links to scathing reports in the Minneapolis media; no "I booked the cheapest fare on Orbitz and UA charged me double for my carry-on" posts -- nothing. I guess we'll see what happens as the program expands to more flights.

laxmillenial

Unknowingly? There are numerous warnings on both 3rd party sites as well as on UA's website when you book stating that you're purchasing a BE bucket fare. At some point in time we have to lay part of the blame on the party booking the ticket. Sure, it's a new ticket category with limitations and different processes, but it's not the airlines fault if you don't listen to the popup that comes up, the check box that states you agree that there are no carry on bags allowed nor seat selections, as well as the big orange text that says BASIC ECONOMY. It irks me a little whenever people say they 'didn't know' when there's this popup that you can't bypass when booking on UA's website.

I'm not the smartest guy on the block, not even close. If I can figure out that I'm buying a BE ticket, I would expect 99% of everyone else to be able to piece that together too.

If they rolled this out in the middle of the night and told no one or sent one email, I'd completely agree with you 100%.

LASUA1K

On the app. Once I clicked on the fare which was the first one listed on the left, I clicked it but thankfully I was awake and I got the warning. I could've easily just clicked ok.

findark

For now they still have them filed, but they are a round-trip basis and probably won't price since they're the same price as the regular Y fare (see e.g. MR0AFBR).

Also interesting to note some more market moves. For example, MSP/DEN has published GAA7ACBS, a $29 base fare with no regular Economy pair, which is not a direct match of F9 but seems aimed at them. In a somewhat similar vein, I follow SFO/MSP and note that SY always sets the market price and UA has switched from matching with regular fares to matching with N fares.