Originally Posted by
DWFI
If they want to sell those kinds of tickets and clearly mark them as "Instant Upgrade", that's totally fine imo. But there is zero disclosure unless you dig through walls of fine print, and that practice should be illegal imo.
Well, it's the fine print that gets you. Hardly anybody reads or understands the clickable terms and conditions, which is where the language probably resides that makes this a case of misleading-but-not-fraud.
Of course it would be more consumer-friendly if UA put a big red sticker on this fare class warning that it's a non-transferable, this-flight/date-only deal. But UA isn't going to do that if it doesn't have to.
Listen, this is an airline that makes people buy needlessly expensive fare classes just for the chance at upgrading with miles -- and an industry that is lobbying for a "Transparent Airfare Act" so it can conceal the true cost of tickets. There's a lot about airfare pricing and practice that ought to be illegal, but until Congress grows a spine, consumers have to live by their wits.