For the average person or even the average rich person, it does seem ridiculous. Yet I live in Newport Beach and work with super rich people in Newport, LA, SF, Miami, NYC, and Chicago--not to mention in Asia, Europe, and South America. The difference in price between J and F is peanuts to them. It's like the difference between buying a 3 series BMW or an Aston Martin for them--and they have the money so they sometimes buy the Aston and don't think twice.

Everyone herein tends to look at these prices from the perspective of value add. When you're really rich, the value add looks a lot different. There also is a lot of "keeping up with the Joneses" which makes more super rich than you'd think not think twice about looking "off" with a J purchase when F is available--even on UA. Then there are the more senior executives whose companies give them allowances to fly F and have contracts with certain airlines for reduced pricing--including UA. So UA still gets revenue for their F seats more than people would guess.

How much so I can't say, of course. I just know too many clients who have flown UA F and who have even offered to PAY to fly me in UA F to visit them. I won't even begin to tell you how many Asian clients offer to fly me to Asia, and I normally only expected to insist on J until they offered to pay for F. I've taken UA F paid a few times because the route/timing worked better for me even though CX and SQ and OZ and KE were available...but understandably, I've flown CX and SQ more!