Originally Posted by
demkr
What is everyone's theory on United's success? E+? PS service? As far as I know, it's not the food...
I don't know if I'd yet associate the word "success" with United, but over at the UA board lots of folks swear by E+. And some of them seem to be folks who are more than just budget travelers.
UA also does seem to milk E+ for more than just customer loyalty. For those people who don't otherwise qualify for the perk, it finds various ways of selling access to the seats to them on a per trip or I believe a per year basis.
Another factor might be the improved UA international J seats. I wouldn't quite call them top-tier. But they have moved UA past some of the competition. Even though I like LH and NH service better, for instance, I'd now pick UA to NRT or FRA for the better seats. I'm afraid that AA isn't even in that ballgame. Now that IB has gone full-flat in J, I'd go for it over AA even though in most respects it's still inferior to AA.
Of course, I realize that profit or less is usually about more than one or two factors.