bocastephen

Nobody spends 10,000 on a ticket, especially on United, that is a massive over-exaggeration, not even in the realm of reality. Most domestic F (P) fares are 25-100% more than the lowest coach fare sold on the route in quest. Everyone is complaining about not having enough seats for CPU, then complaining about TOD, now we're complaining about the very outside chance of a IRROP limiting SDC options for paid F? This is sufficiently a rare enough occurance that a policy change to favor this is not needed.

What we need is a clamp-down on under valued TOD taking away CPU seats with negative revenue consequences against fees that should/would be collected from these pax if they sat in coach.

If they want to hold back 2 seats until departure, there needs to be a strictly adhered-to process for clearing CPUs against those unclaimed seats before departure, and that means a CPU for a paying customer, not a pass rider.

jsloan

People absolutely spend $10K on tickets on UA, at least if they're paying retail. They simply don't do it on domestic itineraries. Just about any flight in the UA system can be part of a $10K itinerary when connecting internationally, however. And, while flying in Y from IAH to AUS might not be a big deal, telling someone on SYD-LAX-BOS that they're going to have to spend the last 6+ hours of travel time in Y is going to leave a bad taste in somebody's mouth.

I don't begrudge UA selling seats at whatever price they find appropriate. I book on UA because they give me E+ and I might get upgraded. If somebody else wants to pay for that F seat, more power to them. But I question the logic of a system that would rather fill the cabin with inexpensive upgrades (of any type, TOD or CPU) rather than save a couple of seats for IRROPS (aka a customer service gesture), SDC (perversely, a benefit that's much more valuable in Y than in F), and last-minute purchases at prices that may dwarf the upgrade offer.

It is as if the auxiliary revenue from a TOD goes into a different P&L than fare revenue, and different people have their bonuses tied to each category...

bocastephen

SYD-LAX-BOS is less than half your fare quote on a r/t ticket through EOS - even a completely unrestricted one-way is still 35% less.

Regardless, we don't need a policy change to accommodate these extremely outlying rare occurrences.

PaulInTheSky

1. There's no way to know upgrades are cheap. People can usually get YBM down to E fare, and they are sometimes more expensive than discount P.

2. Like the others are saying, they usually hold two, but if it's sold out, it's because it's sold out. In addition, don't forget that there are INTL P fares that book directly into domestic F/J, and more importantly, Awards.

3. Holding two is what UA usually does. That's the best they can do under control. In the IRROPs, it's easily out of the control of everybody. In the mind of UA, whenever someone is in F, either from paid or upgrade before check-in or IRROPs happen, they should be treated the same way as F. For example, I had a flight already cleared before IRROPs occurred. If you press UA hard enough, you can force 1K/Supervisor to book you directly into any revenue J/F code, and they would convert it back to R or ON. Sometimes, what you see from the upgrade list does not tell you a whole story. There can be another person who purchased exactly the same fare as you, got rebooked into full Y because there's no F, but suddenly F came back available, and they got right back into F as R.

You just really can't tell for sure, especially during IRROPs. Things you can protect yourself are, insurance, in weather/mechanical-related IRROPs, look for the best alternative options, and in other carriers as well.

Take a deep breathe. Agents are already working their butt off rebooking the passengers. If you lose your F seat in the event of IRROPs from paid F fare, just write to Customer Relations and ask for GG downgrade and compensation for inconvenience.

findark

Huh? To use the example at hand, I pretended I'm in BOS and just heard I need to be in a meeting in SYD next week. A 6/26-6/30 itinerary is $11,687.56 in Z both ways, and a few more thousand each way in pricing into higher fare classes. Competition is similar except for a JL fare via Japan which is ~$8k.


Moreover, despite Friday being multiple days away, I cannot book SYD-BOS as a one-stop itinerary in J. All Friday connections SFO/LAX-BOS are completely sold out up front. For $14.8k I can connect to AA in full J on LAX-BOS. Now, is it possible UA sold every seat to a highly profitable fare? Maybe. But I think it's more likely a sign of the problem where they upgrade and cheaply sell the cabin all the way full too far in advance.

wvactions

I thought this was the case also. I purchased the offer to upgrade to first at time of purchase for a flight last week. I don't care about the EQDs because I have the Explorer card and spend more than 25k. I was counting on the EQMs however to requalify for Gold. My revised receipt showed the additional EQM but after the flight I only got credit for original EQMS.

Last year I always earned the F EQMs. Is this a change this year?

WineCountryUA

It varies and has for years -- see wiki of
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ome-don-t.html

bocastephen

So because of your extremely rare, one-off example, United should completely change their policies to eliminate cheaper P fares, eliminate TOD and sharply curtail CPU to keep the F cabin open for the small, remote chance a paid F customer on a very rare, perhaps less than 1 in 50,000, high value fare should be able to SDC onto another flight in the even rarer event of a IRROP situation that leaves them facing a single segment in coach, for which they would be otherwise compensated?

findark

I think you're blowing the argument out of proportion. The "no F seats at all" issue is a common problem. I spent most of last year flying almost weekly between SFO and WAS, and most days there would be zero F seats on any flight day-of. This didn't hurt me because I booked in advance and flew nonstop, but anyone trying to literally walk up, or someone who misconnected into either SFO or IAD was going to be out of luck.

I don't think it would be unreasonable for UA to refuse to advance CPU/TOD the last two seats. Or even one seat. Only sell it to a full F fare, or positive space IRROPS. If it's still available at the gate, then process the upgrade. I of course don't have detailed data, but I strongly suspect these "last seats" usually go to TOD upgraders. Yes, I think UA should hold back those seats, forego the ~$500 in revenue from the upgrades, and either use them for IRROPS (goodwill), sell them at full F (much more profit), or battlefield CPU them (more goodwill). I don't think that's a crazy idea.

joelliot

I agree, the idea that IRROPS is a 1 in 50,000 rare event doesn't hold if you fly thru some of the "bad" hubs like EWR. I also suspect that a lot of people saying this is "crazy" are not flying paid F. For those that don't get these first world problems. How many have been frustrated by a misconception causing a middle seat E- ride for hours.

canadiancow

This has been my experience too.

My roommate ran into this on ROC-IAH-SFO, where a controllable delay made him misconnect in IAH, and the next few IAH-SFO flights were F0, but with many checkmarks.

I've regularly run into issues where I can't SDC because every flight is full in F. It doesn't happen all the time. I'm not even sure if it happens half the time. But it is not a rare occurrence.

s0ssos

What's rare? For the whole next month SYD-BOS in business is $10k AUD one-way.

rch4u

United doesn't fly ROC-IAH.

ryman554

No. But perhaps if demand is so high, they should be charging more?

Perhaps. If TOD completely fills up the main cabin, as others have pointed out, ANY IRROPS really prevents re-accomodation for existing premium pax.

ABSOLUTELY. Upgrading (in any form) needs to be on space-available basis. All the anecdotes (and, yes, anecdotes are not a synonym of data) point to an overly-full front cabin loading in the presence of cleared upgrades.

Sharply reduce that, and you greatly enhance the ability of UA to re-accomodate paid premium pax day-of

The otherwise compensated is a red-herring. Do you really think a paid-J pax will be happy with compensation when faced with a middle seat in the back of the bus after a TPAC/TATL flight? These are the customers you want to keep, not irritate.

I tend to agree with you on walk-ups, especially since you have data and I don't, but strongly disagree on your assessment of overly-full premium cabins day (or week) of.

There is a balance, to be sure, of rewarding loyalty by granting access to premium cabins on economy fares (see thread, "Useless, my RPU and GPU") and maintaining flexibility for those that do buy said fares. It appears, based only on flight loadings the day of and the day prior, the balance is shifted toward overly full front cabins.

JohnneeO

I just checked my notes. On August 19, 2015, I was flying EWR-ORD on UA 1945, as a non-elite. At some point after booking in regular economy, I was offered a seat in F for $23, which I took (obviously). I considered this a TOD upgrade.