Originally Posted by notquiteaff

Below is what Delta.com does when you select a Basic Economy fare from the search results. Pretty difficult to argue that "I didn't see what I agreed to." That said, other sales channels (e.g., your favorite corporate travel system) may not do that (yet). Haven't tried the Expedias of the world to see what they do.

Originally Posted by Azmordean

From what I've seen with DL, the savings with Basic is pretty minimal -- 20-30 bucks or some such -- so never something I'd take advantage of but I'm sure some people do. I'm also not 100% sure how the search engine displays it, but for some reason, I recall it defaulting to regular Main Cabin economy, with Basic offered as a cheaper option. I'm fairly certain though, that the base fare is regular economy, and basic shows as a discount. So it'd show up regular econ, E+ (upgrade), or Basic (downgrade). I could be wrong though.

I don't see this as that big a negative, really. It's not like they are adding worse seats or something -- it just offers the most cost-conscious fliers a (slightly) cheaper option. DL also doesn't seem to offer it on all flights -- I'm guessing it only pops up as an option when the plane isn't full with normal fares or something.

As far as corporate travel policies, I understand the concern, but honestly, those are not United's problem. Most companies use a travel provider of some kind, and it is trivial for something like Concur to filter out these fares, as apparently a lot of companies have done with DL and AA. These fares make no sense for business travelers even on an averaged cost basis, so I suspect the vast majority of travel departments will filter them. Any that don't -- well, they are the ones with the issue, not UA.