Originally Posted by MAN Pax
That said, there seemed to be no rationale for allowing *S and *G into E+, other than to drum up more business.
I would have thought that this would be good reason enough.
That said, for us, alternatives are pretty limited on the routes UA flies. For tatl, you fly with one of the European *A carriers, earnings will be slashed unless you are on full fare and the only other alternatives are US and, at a push, AC, neither of which is especially enthusing.
For intra-US, I don't think that US is that attractive, and for South America, RG still has to rebuild itself. It is really only on transpac that real alternatives exist, but transpac routes are of little significance for European-based pax.
It is therefore possible that the income stream from selling E+ would more than counterbalance the (moderate) loss of pax ex Europe, at least among the pax who definitely want to fly *A. It does contribute to decreasing the overall attractiveness of *A, though and those of us who maintain elite statuses in more than one alliance may be more inclined to fly outside *A.
None of the *A airlines have a comparable offering, other than BD Longhaul, and that's sold as a separate cabin. So, no chance to reciprocate through the alliance.
Several *A airlines have a premium economy product (TG, NZ) although, afaik, this is a genuine PE product rather just a little bit more legroom as UA and BD.
If UA now sells E+ internationally, this is going to create a problem for them ex-UK, as this will mean that this will have to be treated as a separate cabin and therefore attract the higher duty of tax. They will therefore have to charge the E+ premium +GBP20, which might make the product rather unattractive. For their own elites, they also face the prospect of having to ask them to go via the ticketing desk to cough up an extra GBP20 or absorb the cost themselves, neither of which is a terribly attractive proposition for UA.