Originally Posted by
Kacee
I don't doubt Sykes has accurately passed along what was received, but have to wonder whether UA is really changing its fare classes so they will no longer match up with its key JV partners, LH and NH.
That struck me as odd too--I actually wasn't sure I believed it was repeated two more times by someone high enough in the sales org that they would know. It's entirely possible that they were honestly mistaken, but it wasn't the case of someone just making something up.
I can see good reason for doing it, at least temporarily. By the time they launch, they'll have no tickets for United flights in those underlying fare classes (even O). Moving upgrades to a new fare class and revalidating the ticket is a quite a bit less heavy of a lift than switching to G, E, and N (which are all in very wide use right now). That's not to say that switching to an in-use fare class is impossible (as I mentioned, AA has done it), but it would probably be a pain.