WineCountryUA

are you saying that you don't refund/cancel the second ticket?
If you do, then your logic has a problem. It is more that UA is hindered in selling the second ticket since you have the ticket/seat blocked until just prior to departure.

weero

Or - if you are an unwanted foreigner - that the one reservation you hold is canceled well before the ticketing period ,,,, that's just the new UA.

People now have to be creative with name typos and bogus FFP numbers until the moment they check in ...

Often1

When a pax holds an "impossible" series of reservations, the loser are other business travellers who can't confirm a seat on a flight. This leads to more overbooking, less certainty and the cost of IDB/VDB which is shared among all pax through higher fares.

A traveller who books a second or subsequent seat in the certain knowledge that s/he can only be in one place at one time, drives high-bucket F/Y pax to carriers where they can confirm. For people where time is money, sitting around at an airport, hoping a seat opens up isn't in the cards. I fly UA when I can, but I'm not wasting time to do it.

Those pax who say they will jump ship over this are free to do so. They won't find greener grass elsewhere.

I would be quite happy if UA sent one email and cancelled duplicate or overlapping res. 4-6 hours later.

fastair

I must agree. "flight firming" (from what I have seen over time) has clearly reduced the number of no shows, the variability of no shows, the overbooking levels of trips due to the less variability, and created more managabe trips with better predictions of shows vs no shows. As such the airline can better manage the inventory, matching supply with real demand vs supply with inaccurate demand. Airlines have "firmed" their flights for a few decades now, using various methods, from cncling unticketed reservations, to cncling duplicate reservations, cncling downline space after a no-show/no call, requiring "instand ticketing" vs holding reservation, and yes, even searching for multiple reservations that cannot both be flown.

A couple of decades ago, I would see overbooking of 12-20% being pretty common, now from my experience, it is far less than that.

Not only does the overbooking make inventory mgmt less of an accurate science, selling too many tickets at times when people do show but if the passenger assigns himself a seat, that is one less preassignable seat another customer can assign to themself.

No shows will happen, and overbooking will happen. Reducing the variability of that benefits both the airlines as well as the customers. Ijn most businesses, reducing supply/demand variabilty to an accurate and predictable number is a big plus.

That said, I can't find anything in the current CoC about double booking, or booking impossible extra tickets, which kind of shocks me.

meFIRST

Not if I paid top dollar for my plane tickets and united took my money. What i will do, is book the other ticket on another carrier.

Don't you just love choices?

In my case, Terminal 7,8,6 are all interconnected. I'll just walk over to terminal 6 and buy a LAX-JFK ticket at the gate.

In theory, what the original poster wants to do is keep all the revenue with United (for mileage purposes) and convenience. Makes sense.

There are not that many people with travel budgets and policies that allow this. UA should be thankful that they have business from travelers like this. I don't think this is a common practice, enough to break the business.. A last minute p.s fare is usually around $2500 give or take. $1800 if its on CO to EWR.

I say go after the bottom feeder on AA who put multiple reservations on hold so that his SWU would clear.

as219

As someone who books last-minute travel for a number of other people, I can tell you (a) this is certainly nothing new and, although from the perspective of the individual traveler it can seem unfair, (b) it makes a lot of sense. No offense Phil Level, but the fact that you promise to cancel one of your bookings at some point does nothing to help me when I go to book and the flight is full. I'm usually booking tickets at 3-7 days out. If you cancel at T-24 hours or something like that, what good does that do me? My people need confirmed seats long before that. Or if I'm forced to buy a higher fare class because your holding more than one ticket.

It may very well be the case that this wasn't enforced as diligently when there was excess system capacity, but these days there simply isn't the leeway to allow it on some flights/routes/dates.

weero

I don't think that the notion you always bring up that business travelers are wealthy, stupid, and non-creative does them justice. Many premium travelers plan very diligently and adapt when the airline tries to exploit them with higher load factors, smaller planes, more overbooking, and the likes.

As an elite (1K and better) you can always confirm Y, high fare buckets are not affected by this anyway and F travelers have been scared away by UDU. So what is the point here???
The people who do this are most certainly not jumping ship. They will simply book the alternative ticket with another FFP/name spelling and/or another carrier.

Those who are too lazy and sluggish to plan might jump ship. But I somehow doubt this.

WineCountryUA

The issue is not a confirmed ticket, but a confirmed (acceptable) seat assignment. If double booking is blocking seat assignments, that may driving off customers.

There are regular postings from those upset on the lack of E+ (non-middle) seats when booking in the last few days or week before a flight.

Phil Level

To address some of the open ended questions/statements... as best I can

I go to NYC 7-10 times a year. Usually I take the Saturday night red-eye and return on Weds or Thurs.

Many, but not all, of the other meeting participants are local to NYC, so last minute changes are easy for those who live locally. I would say about 50% of the time, meeting times & dates do change, sometimes with less than 24 hours notice. Yes, it drives me nuts, but it's the nature of the business. I need to be at the meetings, but I do not have full control of the schedule. I have to believe there are others who business meetings are volatile as mine.

I actually find it less expensive to book 2 or sometimes 3 non-refundable tickets, than a single refundable ticket. I usually book 3-6 weeks in advance. I posted some samples of what I paid in the past. Typically one way is $150-300, so sometimes there is residual value when I cancel a ticket, but UA keeps the $150 no matter.

I certainly do not book in this manner with intention of squeezing anyone out of a seat, and the way I see it, there is almost always someone on the standby list JFK-LAX who gets the seat I ultimately end up not using.

kevinsac

"Good evening, Spago's/French Laundry/Il Mulino/Joel Robuchon/Commander's Palace. How may I help you?"

"I'd like to make dinner reservations. Next Friday, at 7:00 pm, please. A party of two, please. Under the name of Joe Smith, please."

"Yes, we have a table available. I'll put you down."

"Thanks, that's great. But you know, sometimes my girlfriend takes a little longer to get ready. Will you also book a table for us at 7:30 pm that same night? And in case she is having a fashion crisis, how about another table at 8:00 pm and 8:30 pm and 9:00 pm. You never know when we'll show up. But having 5 tables booked for us should give us the leeway we need. ...... But you know, maybe we are going to be tired after a day of sight seeing on Friday night. Since we are in town for 5 days, will you go ahead and book a table for those 5 timeslots on Thursday and on Saturday nights, too. And will you put us in that special section we like so much .... it's just cozy and more comfortable there. Hey, we're spending the money with you, sooner or later, so what's the big deal. And sooner or later, we'll decide which one of those 15 tables we actually will use .... and we'll let you know later which ones to cancel. In the mean time, just tell the other people who call and want a reservation for either of those three nights that you are booked solid and they can't book a table, because we are not able to make up our mind now."

Phil Level

OK, now it's my turn to ask Q's of the naysayers of what I do

1) How is what I do any worse than those who book a "mileage run" ?(a practice which is generally supported in the FT community)

A MR removes seats from the reservation pool, and denies other passengers who have a legitimate travel need. When I book two tickets, my legitimate travel need is fulfilled, and when I cancel the ticket I do not use, another traveler's legitimate need is also fulfilled. I've done a few (3 IIRC) MRs and certainly do not want UA to ban MRs.

2) Put yourself in my shoes. Meeting starts at 9AM, and could break any time between 12 Noon and 6 PM. How would you book tickets differently? I'm open to suggestions.

craz

I can see both sides of the pic;

the passenger says since Im paying top $$ and alot at that I want to know that I can fly when I want to and where (cabin) I want to and as long as Im being over charged for the Fully Flex tkt I will do as I please

the Carriers; all of them have cut back on the # of flights = more people chasing fewer seats. So no Carrier wants in the end to give away a Biz or FC seat that they could have sold for good $$ as a free Upgrade or even sell it for an UP but end up with alot less $$ then they could have. Also once a flight is soldout in F or C that person who was willing to pay wont simply purchase a Y tkt but most likely theyll simply purchase the cabin they wanted on another Carrier

so I think its a good thing that they are being proactive to try and find those seats that wont get used in the end and try to grab what $$ they can. I hope they keep track of these people and as long as in the end they end up flying on a Fully Flex tkt then the carriers simply will need to grin and bear it.

However if they find someone is constantly holding tkts and usually ends up not using them then Id say that Carrier should bid farewell to that person, eg I book UA but want AA and although at times I end up flying UA its not that often of cause UA wont know Im flying AA, but they will be able to see that Im making 100 reses a yr CXing the last min and flying say 3 times a yr on UA. If however Im making 100 reses and end up purchasing most of those Flighst then the carrier will still be way ahead in the end and they will simply have to Grin & Bear it

eg CO flight # 1130 today SFO-EWR yesterday no way was there anyway to purchase a tkt F or Y on Any of COs SFO-EWR flights for today (had a friend on that flight) well in the end they UPed 6 people into F and took 6 SBYs. So whats an airline to do most likely yesterday they were people who would have paid what ever the asking price was for a seat but with none avaialble probably simply booked another Carrier to get into the NY area if there was any availability

In the end maybe CO got 1 or 2 to pay the Upgrade fee but still may have ended up leaving a lot of $$ on the table, or maybe that was 6 lucky Battlefields. So if a Carrier starts trying to work the odds in their favor I think its a good thing, but they better do it with kid gloves so as not to turn off the customer who is keeping them afloat and actually paying Top $$ to fly

so depending on each persons pattern of what they end up actually flying should be the determining factor on how a Carrier should deal with them

kents

[QUOTE=Phil Level;17451410]OK, now it's my turn to ask Q's of the naysayers of what I do

1) How is what I do any worse than those who book a "mileage run" ?(a practice which is generally supported in the FT community)

QUOTE]

A MR is legitimate, paid travel. To the airline, it's identical to tourist legitimate paid travel, as well as business legitimate paid travel.

schley

I don't see this being widespread myself. I don't book full fare tickets, nor do most leisure travelers. If the business folks want to go ahead and pay full fare, IMO if you have a full fare ticket departing that day you should be guaranteed a flight in that class that day. If you show up late then that airline will bump someone IDB before leaving you as a full fare customer. Just my opinion. The business and full fare travelers help subsidize mine (and most likely most FTer's) low spend for max benefits.

GoAmtrak

If you were a regular who paid 10x the menu prices for the same meals, I would not begrudge you if your double- or triple-booking prevented bottom-feeding me from dining that night.