Originally Posted by jsloan

Precisely. I think the disconnect comes from the (incorrect, or at least, incomplete) notion that airlines have implanted in the public consciousness, that airfares monotonically rise over time. So, some people imagine that airlines will increase their prices for the poor fool desperate enough to search airline websites repeatedly, despite the fact that every other retail business works in exactly the opposite manner.

Now, UA and other airlines aren’t doing themselves any favors, as they are definitely working on continuous pricing and may be working on personalized pricing (in markets where that’s legal). But even with personalized pricing, I suspect that they’ll have to make that work by giving discounts off of a (presumably higher) base price, not by adding surcharges. The purchase experience is much different if you log in and get offered a loyalty discount, vs. logging in and being told that you don’t qualify for the published fare and have to pay extra, even if the resulting price is identical.