Originally Posted by
Sykes
I think that is a pretty accurate description of the new reality, and it's pretty good news for people like me that are willing to pay a reasonable premium for a premium cabin. This new reality is also not unique to UA ... BA has a Europe-Asia fare sale right now where the base fare is around £100 in business class LHR-ICN (plus surcharges). If you have any flexibility in dates, it's pretty easy to find US-Asia in J for $3k-$4k roundtrip, and US-Europe for $2k-$3k roundtrip.
Agreed 100%.
These prices are between 2x-3x the price of a typical W fare, and if you consider that W fares won't always clear into R (i.e. the lottery, with ever diminishing odds of winning), and if you're someone who does even 1 or 2 discretionary international flights to get 1K status, then it's very easy to see how the cost of flying on $3-4K P/Z fares can be roughly equivalent to the adjusted-cost of playing the W lottery if you account for money wasted on W when it doesn't clear and if you account for extra flights flown just to get 1K so you can get GPUs to play the W lottery.
So, I'm with you, this is not a bad thing. Pay more per flight but fly less and end up paying the same over the course of the year - this is my new strategy. We'll see how it goes.
I also get the sense that some of the changes we are seeing at CO/UA are related to global trends as it seems like there are a lot of changes happening on other airlines as well.
At the end of the day, I believe strongly in the integrity of clear and straightforward pricing. Cut all the crap, cut all the games - just set a price and be done with it. $7-8K for a J seat is nonsense. Hardly anyone pays it. So, they discount for corporate accounts and play these upgrade games to fill what's left. Why bother with all this nonsense? If this is the direction things are going in, I think it's good. I have the sense it will increase yields and generally create behaviors that make sense for all players.