Originally Posted by
UAgeek71
The OPM thing, as others have said is a red herring. I am sure there are people who fly on OPM who don't have caps and strict controls in place. I would imagine that group is a very small sample percentage of people overall who fly on OPM.
Where I work, we have little to no choice, with very tight controls on booking the lowest economy fare. We have strict deadlines on purchase by dates. The travel system we are required to use, will not allow us to book on our own cards to capture bonuses. We do have some small flexibility in that we can purchase a non stop fare even if a connection is available at a somewhat lower far -as even my company understands time is money. Even that however is capped at around 250 dollars, so I can't spend 1000 extra dollars on a non stop for example. We can NEVER book domestic tickets in any UP fare (P, HUP etc), even if that fare was cheaper than a standard economy fare. The system simply will not allow a fare that ends up with a seat in F domestically. No way around that.
For International, I am able (based on my position in the company) to book into C, but with severe restrictions of about a 400 dollar gap on lowest available fare across multiple carriers, so if AC is 400 cheaper than UA, I have to go on AC no matter the connection times, etc. If I want to stay and earn on UA, I can certainly fly in economy, but if C/D/J/P are more than a competitor, I can not stay on UA in Business - so they leave it up to me.
The company I was with for about 25 years had a slightly different policy All international is business class regardless of your position. All domestic is coach. They were interested in cheap, but not cheapEST. Had to be Star Alliance. No flyiing Pakistani Air or Aeroflot to save money. Within those guidelines I could book what I wanted.
Originally Posted by
UAgeek71
Why would any company allow employees to spend excessively on business travel expenses to justify personal benefits? That doesn't make a lot of fiscal sense in anyone's books - but it seems that is what UA is wagering on with this change, is the hope that some people who fly will attempt to spend more. It will backfire for them for people like me.
I don't see that as what they are doing. Even flying OPM as I do, I'm not going to book an $8,000 fare on the same flight I can get a $6,000 fare. I don't think they expect anyone to do that.
It seems to me that they are saying that they are going to raise the benefits for the people on the $6,000 fare to help keep them as customers. In doing so they either have to reduce the benefits elsewhere or raise costs. They chose to reduce the benefits for the guy paying $1,000 on the same flight.