Originally Posted by spin88

The result is that (a) United's fares show up as lower than DL/AA, etcs, since its a BE vs. Y fare, and - at least on Google, for now - (b) all anyone sees in an initial search is the BE fares on UA, not Y fares.

I said UA is doing a bate and switch because this little trick allow them to display lower fares, which on some search engines means their flights come up first. The actual Y fares are not lower, but they look lower, since a BE is displayed.