United greedy in SFO
 

They have turned in to the Alaska Airlines of San Francisco. Totally unfriendly to the business traveller. I tried to go standby recently , same destination, same day and they refused me. Then they dinged me for a higher fare.

There is a special services supervisor there, Karen Villareal, that makes the Wicked Witch of the West look like Dorothy.

Careful of your pocketbook in SFO, United is getting greedy there.

[This message has been edited by fishing flyer (edited 02-21-2001).]

It would be interesting to know the fare basis code on the ticket you had. Some fares are time verified/time specific and if you fly outside that window, an add collect applies. I've experienced this on other carriers as well. However, if you were not on a time verified fare/time specific fare, then this is concerning.

I think we all know that all of Southwest's discount fares are, in effect, time specific. Absent weather or mechancial problems when they waive it, standby on a discounted WN fare requires upgrade to Y.

United has changed its policy on time specific tickets. You are allowed to fly stand-by the same day w/o any fee even if you have a time specific ticket. This policy went into effect in January. All of United's owners/employee's may not be aware of this change.

I AGREE WITH TANGO....ALL FLTS AND FARES ARE NOW ELIGIBLE FOR STANDBY...EVEN TIME SPECIFIC AND SHUTTLE FARES ...IF YOU CALL THE AIRLINE HAVE THE AGENT ADD THIS TO YOUR RECORD ITS DOCUMENTED

Goodness! If UA has a flight on the same day but different time and has EMPTY seats on it, what is the big deal? Give the customer who wants the seat the seat. They were going to fly you anyway and have already paid you. See, this is the lack of customer service that is bothersome. It costs UA nothing to do something like this (unless you wanted double miles, double upgrade, etc. ;-). If the seat goes out empty then they still don't have any revenue and just have one pissed off customer who will tell everybody else about their experience ;-).

Fishing Flyer: Were you on a United Shuttle flight? I just went through this with UA a few months back.

UA Shuttle flights now operate and ticket like Southwest flights. You cannot stanby for a same destination, same day flight without paying the difference in the one way fare. It has nothing to do with SFO, it's all of the west coast shuttle routes. I really laid the wood to a supervisor at LAX about 3 weeks ago when I was asked for $94 to take a flight 90 minutes earlier to the same destination (Sacramento) that had empty seats. She gave me the boarding pass with an attitude and I reminded her that I could walk across the way and just take Southwest if this is how they treat their passengers - especially a 1K flier.

This way of ticketing is nothing more than a sham to rip off consumers.



------------------
Ken in Sacramento

TravelManKen. Can you provide more info regarding your experience concerning no longer flying same day standby (same city pairs) on UA Shuttle? I've done 100+ Shuttle flights annually for each of the last five years and, except as noted below, I've never had a problem with same day standby on any discounted UA Shuttle ticket that had "SX" in the fare basis code (and did so as recently as February 13). I've never had to buy up to a higher fare.

This is not true with Southwest. All discounted non-refundable Southwest fares require buy up if you fly standby, as stated in their rules, excerpted as follows:

Southwest Airlines Fares (BW7NR)
Roundtrip Fare Mon-Fri 7PM-5:59AM, Sat & Sun:
Roundtrip travel required. Seats are limited. Seven day advance purchase.
Ticket must be purchased within one day of reservation. One night stayover required. Nonrefundable. Any change to this reservation (flights, dates, cities, and/or names of passengers) may result in a fare increase. Ticketless Travel Online may only be purchased with a credit card. Funds from a previously unused reservation on Southwest Airlines or any other form of Southwest Airlines travel credit (e.g., travel voucher, gift certificate, discount coupon) may not be used as forms of payment for Ticketless Travel Online. Nonrefundable tickets may be used as credit toward the purchase of other tickets. This credit may not be used for Ticketless Travel Online purchases. Ticketless Travel funds from previously unused reservations on Southwest Airlines are valid for 12 months from the original purchase date and may not be extended. Standby travel requires an upgrade to the full unrestricted fare.

* * * * * * *

The old exception for UA Shuttle: When "Shuttle by United" first started (1994), they copied the Southwest rule and same day standby did require buy-up to "YSHUTLE" fare. UA discontinued that practice and began permitting same day standby without additional charge on Shuttle discount fares within about six months of starting the UA Shuttle service.

After reading your post this morning, I called the 1K desk and asked if there had been a change in policy. The agent assured me not: same day standby is permitted without additional charge on UA Shuttle.

I also checked the fare rules on Travelocity for various Shuttle fare basis codes. Many of those rules are silent as to standby, but several explicitly permit standby in the "misc" section. The following is excerpted from the rules for a WOE14SX1 fare between LAX-SMF-LAX (upper case used because that's the way it appears on their site):

"NOTE - ANY SERVICE CHARGES FOR SAME DAY STANDBY WILL BE WAIVED/ / THE TKTG AFTER RES REQ WILL NOT APPL WHEN FARES ARE COMB W/ OTHER FARES TO CONST THRU INTL TRANS T/ F PTS OUTSIDE THE US/ CA/ MX/ BM/ BS/ WEST INDIES PROVIDED AT LEAST ONE INTERNATIONAL SEGMENT OUTSIDE OF THIS AREA IS VIA UA. STANDBY PERMITTED FOR SAME DATE AS ORIGINALLY TKTD PROVIDED ANY FLT/ TIME SPECIFIC PROVISIONS ARE MET."

TravelManKen - you were right to challenge the UA Shuttle agent who wanted the buy up for same day standby. She/he was wrong.

[Edited for typos and coding.]

[This message has been edited by Nevada1K (edited 02-23-2001).]

I really doubt the testimony of the original poster of the thread.

Cheers from an Internet café in South Kensington, where I'm trying to use up my 20-min allotment after having had a nice lunch with Raffy and friends.

I fly UA Shuttle flights almost every week and without exception fly standby for earlier flights when I arrive at the airport early. I have NEVER had an experience like what is described. And as far as the derogatory comments about AS, I think these guys are great as well.

The flip side of the coin - try THIS on United:

If you think that you may be traveling earlier, buy -2- advance/discounted fare tickets on Southwest, one at the earlier time and one at the later time.

The ticket you do not use turns into a credit worth 100% of what you paid, with no $100 change fee. It can be used for a future flight on that route or any other route. United tells you to just throw unused tickets away, because the cost to change them is often more than they are worth.

Call up United sometime and ask them for a credit of all of the segments you never flew. Hear the agent guffaw loudly before hanging up on you.

To my knowledge, shuttle fares do not have change fees. The same is true for American flights that compete with Southwest (e.g. SJC-LAX, which I fly often).

Correct, there are no changes fees on UA Shuttle fares ("SX" appears in the fare basis code). A fully unused ticket is full value; a partially used ticket can, however, be problematic, depending upon the agent.

Also correct, AA has no change fee on the routes it took over from QQ, including LAS-LAX, SJC-LAX. However, many (most) of their agents are not aware of this and you may need to ask them to double check the rules for the fare basis code on your ticket.

Please, I have have far better things to do than write fiction novels for your benefit, Violinist.

BTW, I could tell from the IP address you posted your message from that you were really in room 6 at the Rodeway Inn, in Rockford, Il.

My post referred to a regular United flight, not a shuttle flight. It was a flight from San Fran to New York, non shuttle, regular flight. My ticket price was in the neighborhood of $690 for the one way segment.