Originally Posted by
Artpen100
What I mean is that when the quoted price for a TATL is $1.3K or so for economy and $6K-$7K in business the whole time, I consider offering someone even a $900 buy-up from economy to business a pretty heavy discount. If you can get an offer both ways (and it is usually easier to get one on the daytime return), that is still only $3.1K (and if they open R up, it will be only $2.3K and 40K miles). I've taken those offers. My point is that UA only looks to be doing this right if a pretty big part of the business cabin has already sold out at $6K-7K. But I kind of doubt that is what is happening.
It's a valid point, although not sure I would call that "heavy" discounting.
We should also keep in mind that much of the paid international premium cabin traffic is under corporate contract, and that many corporate discounts will bring that business class fare, priced at $6K retail, down to the $3K level (approximately).