Originally Posted by
rangr
Take a look-- this is for October 23, that's a lot of empty seats with only J class availability showing up... and the fare is $7k. Just 6 months ago, I'd have had P availability with this many seats open, at least i think I would...!
So despite 1M miles on UAL, and 1K status every year since they bought Continental, I'm traveling Jet Blue.
I only pray that the United / Jet Blue merger doesn't happen, but in vain, I suspect.
An empty seat map in advance doesn’t mean much. I checked today’s flights, and United Business was booked solid. winecountry’s post said as much. This means that United’s revenue management system is excellent at predicting sales at the prices United charges (and these prices fluctuate constantly.) There was one open flight in Business for tomorrow EWR-SFO, and United was asking $3,500 one way when I checked. United is expert at this game. As jsloan posted, United doesn’t need to sell cheap tickets because they can sell at these astronomical prices. This may be a change vs what it used to be, but credit goes to United for running such a profitable business. I think frequencies and gauge were higher pre pandemic, but UA has right sized the fleet on EWR-SFO. I can’t fathom who pays $7K for a roundtrip transcon, but United can. If you want cheaper, can you book LGA-ORD-SFO in First? I know it’s not flatbed.