Originally Posted by jsloan

Here: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...onomy-faq.aspx
Look for the words "trans-Atlantic." TATL BE is just an LH light fare -- except for E+, which they don't offer anyway, it's the same restrictions you were willing to accept in the first place. It's a joint venture; the fares are aligned. It's the same product with a different name. They even issued guidance to travel agents about it: https://loyaltylobby.com/wp-content/...nsatlantic.pdf . They then went and modified it in December, including adding the very confusing name of "Basic Economy."


That indication only means that the lowest available booking class has X seats. It doesn't mean that all of the lower booking classes are available. That's how you ended in in W in the first place.

If you're happy paying about 2x the fare to fly AF PE, more power to you. Maybe LH should improve their website -- I personally think it's awful, so it's hard to disagree -- but the rest of this is a little bit of confusion, the very-avoidable-by-UA misunderstandings about two different products with the same "BE" name, and an awful lot of unfounded assumptions on your part. UA is not trying to charge $1000+ to move from BE to regular economy. It's just not happening.