Carolinian

Junk fees are just a way to cheat us out of the benefits we were promised. But at least they aren't as bad as European airlines whose ff programs have become bad jokes.

Close in award ticket fees were designed to pay the cost of Fedexing paper tickets, but now that there are no more paper tickets in most cases, they simply aren't justified. They are archaic. It is like the unions requiring railroads to keep firemen, the guys who shoveled coal, on deisel locomotives for many years. There is no longer a valid justification for it. This is nothing but a consumer ripoff.

ijgordon

Could you be more specific? What exactly were you promised that you now feel cheated out of?

Sorry, but not every single B-2-C transaction needs a "valid justification" for it. What is the valid justification for charging $2000 for a close-in, no Sat night stay r/t NYC to IAH flight? It doesn't cost any more compared to an advance purchase weekend trip. Ever order a bottle of wine in a restaurant? How do you justify those markups? It goes on. A business for the most part has a right to charge its customers whatever it wants (and the customers have a right not to purchase from that business). The terms of the FFPs have always been subject to change, and unless you have millions of miles, you have enough time to redeem your awards under the "old" rules.

Not quite, issuing an award ticket results in the reduction of a liability on the carrier's balance sheet. This can probably be more "profitable" than some super deep-discount fares and is factored into the whole revenue management decision. Also don't forget that the airlines sell miles to the banks, and if they stop making awards available, nobody will want the miles and they'll slowly lose that revenue stream.

Because I'm disappointed (even angry) that this board has become little more than a bltch-fest over every small thing in the past few months. I'm not saying that there is nothing to complain about. But when I feel people are being ridiculous and the claims disproportionate to reality, I'll call them out, and if I need to use "names" to get their attention, that's what I'll do. I don't believe I've come close to violating any terms of FlyerTalk, though if you disagree, by all means report my post by clicking on the little red triangle icon.

EsquireFlyer

^^

goalie

While i disagree with the new changes I'm supposed to like , I can see why a fee in some cases (n.b. in some cases) can and perhaps should be charged tho I'd like to see a breakdown of the costs incurred by UA to justify the dollar amount(s) being charged-and especially if the award ticket was not only booked on-line (which if done according to the rules does not have a fee charged) but also if the refund, change and/or cancellation is also done on-line.

ijgordon

Well, that's just silly. Do you ask the restaurant for a breakdown of food cost, labor, rent, energy and profit to justify the price of your meal?
Now, you can choose not to eat at a restaurant if you estimate that their meals are overpriced, but you can also choose not to cancel an award ticket. I mean, if you cancel a discounted revenue ticket you also have to pay $150 (or more), and you typically don't get your cash redeposited, but I don't see many complaints about that.

eponymous_coward

I am not sure they have invented a number yet that I could put after the "+" to show how much I agree with this sentiment.

In terms of hose jobs to the value of Mileage Plus, the UA/CO merger is nothing compared to what the NW/DL merger did to the NW folks. Nothing like having to spend half a million SkyPesos™ to sit in 767 recliner J on a longhaul flight. Nothing like seeing their longhaul upgrade certs become effectively useless instead of quite valuable. Nothing like having elite benefits be taken away from NW Golds and Platinums and given back to DL Platinums and Diamonds. Nothing like having the intra-Asia awards double in cost overnight, with no notice. Nothing like having to pay ridiculous international award origination fees. And all DL has gone on to do since then? Make record profits.

But yeah, this is what happened in the DL forum, complete with accusations of Kool-Aid drinking and the like, so none of this should be surprising. But there are a number of reasonably customer-friendly things that have happened to MP/OP since the merger: one-way awards, some fees being cut for a lot of folks, even some mileage requirements going down- and that's being lost in all of this. It's foolish to think that airlines won't try to devalue mileage balances over time. That's how it's worked industry-wide for decades, and it's not limited to UA, or even to US-based airlines. LH has done it: their new award chart is bad, they charge YQ and fees, and doubled award mileage on A380 F. SQ has done it: they charge double award mileage on their "new" 77Ws (which are going on 5 years old and counting). Oh, and pay YQ, please. BA charges YQ that's close to a cost of a coach ticket when you throw in taxes.

People certainly don't have to be happy that UA does something that makes things more expensive/less valuable for you. But all told, I'll take $25 close-in award fees over $150 change fees, having to cash in several hundred thousand miles to get an award, or paying YQ. And to be honest, UA's award chart is still plenty valuable compared to competitors.

rankourabu

And closer to home, AC just raised their requirements by an average 25%, on top of having to pay YQs of up to $600 on AC metal.

The close-in fee is not the end of the world!

alison11

I'm a co Plat now. So I use my miles to book an award ticket at co.com. I can cancel and redeposit for free.
I am also a ua premier exec. I use my miles to book an award ticket at .bomb. I cannot cancel and redeposit for free.

hmm...alignment?

bmvaughn

Seems aligned to me. You didn't have enough mileage on CO to get matched to 1K... you're what has previously been called a 1K-lite

unavaca

You must have had between 75k and 100k EQM. You do not qualify for UA's top tier.

Next year's alignment will be interesting when 75k Plats will no longer be the top of the by-EQ(M|S) food chain.

goalie

Let me try and re-phrase this way......How can one justify a cost of $150 for "hitting the cancel button" (or in other words, charging $150 for something that takes all of 5 minutes to do). Like I said, I can see why a fee can be charged (and should be cahrged in some cases) but to me imho, it's a bit steep.

SFOSpiff

I realize the point you're trying to make, but I think it's apples and oranges.

Fares don't go from $300 to $1400 from one second to the next; they gradually get more expensive as the cheaper seats are sold. If you did find a walk-up $300 fare, and halfway through the booking, UA tells you there's a $500 "last minute" booking fee, wouldn't you be annoyed?

I think there's some perception out there that because awards are "free" that you have no right to complain.

What makes this fee counter-productive is that if a flight is going to go out with empty seats, I would think an airline would want to do whatever it takes to get you on board if it removes an expensive obligation from their books. (I think the same logic should apply to SWUs, but I know that would get ugly at the gate)

ijgordon

Well, thanks, it was getting kind of lonely.

Well, they absolutely can jump up pretty significantly, depending on the fare structure of the route. A 3-day A/P and no-A/P fare can have a $700+ differential (try EWR-IAH), so after the advance purchase cut-off the fare skyrockets.[quote]

Sure, but they're telling you about them more than a month in advance.

But this isn't true - if it were you wouldn't have high last-minute fares. Wouldn't you think the airlines would want to get any cash for the perishable seat inventory? But they don't - it's part of a bigger scheme -- segmenting the pricing so business travelers who can afford to pay more are often required to pay more, subsidizing the rest of us. Now, the airlines often do decide to make reward inventory available at the last minute, but they want you to pay more for that. I certainly think that the close-in fees we're talking about are much better than, say, either requiring EasyPass mileage for last-minute awards.

EsquireFlyer

Sure, and close-in fees are also better than a bullet in the head as punishment for booking a last-minute award. But the fact that it's not the worst possible policy says nothing about whether a new policy is good, reasonable, or fair.

Buccaneeratheart

The smartest/least stupid way to "devalue mileage balances" is to let people use their miles with ease at rational redemption levels. CO/UA still do that in over 2/3's of all attempts. When that stops I will do just what I did to Delta, and that is to simply and without emotion stop flying them. From May2009-April 2010, my spend with DL was $158,758. From May 2010-April, 2011 my spend on DL has been $0.

Any carriers that follow DL's lead I will not fly anymore, and that is fact.

My spend with any carrier is directly relational to ease of low mileage redemption on a system wide basis in all classes of service. If everbody else was that way, the current disintegration of FF programs would stop dead in its tracks. I am convinced that the average intelligence of people habituated to/incessantly defending of DL is decreasing every single week.