It was announced here:

That is not new, 1P always pay all the fees except the standby and confirmed standby fees waived a month or two ago.

I always got charged that $25 fee when I called in for award bookings. (not close in fee)

+1 to that - I was expecting a diminished 1MM Silver benefit in a few years when I hit it. May take a bit longer now due to not being calculated by EQM (and having to again return to UA/CO metal only ;)), but I'm quite fine with that, as I know the long-term payoff will be much better.

And as I've said for awhile - they're adding back in an incentive to fly the airline, not just credit to it!!!

How fired up are the CO 1MMs BTW? WOW they made out well.

Unless Silver and general members purchase E+... which is pretty much the point. We know the decision to keep/install E+ fleetwide was made on the numbers -- historical and projected future revenue from the E+ up-sell. Keeping E+ was massive great news several months ago. Now the bill is due, and I think the price is reasonable. ^

I don't know why they did that either (although it was only limited to UA metal flights).

I'd actually rather see them have 2P's keep the baggage limit, E+ with no Exit Row, but maybe something like priority boarding could be removed. The boarding process is just too cumbersome still.

2P perspective
 

In a word: Ow. Losing E+ access at booking doesn't look good, but I'll have to see how things work in practice. (Hint: Getting a discount on E+, or having an E+ purchase refunded if a seat clears, might make me feel less shafted.) Losing the second free checked bag isn't good, but that can be remedied by... oh, what's that card United offers? If only this post were bracketed by large banner ads for it :rolleyes:

On the other hand, I still don't get charged for mileage upgrades and the RDM bonus remains the same. The UDU--er, CPU--changes don't seem to make much of a difference; I expect my odds will remain poor but not zero. (Most recent UDU win: a surprise upgrade at booking on IAH-SJD.)

The worst hit for 2Ps is when they travel with families. I haven't checked two bags traveling solo since my last ski trip--and a ski bag and boot bag only count as one checked bag anyway. But between my wife and I, checking two bags was our usual practice even before our daughter showed up. I also appreciated getting E+ for free for us almost every time (and especially with mini-DCA writer as a lap infant).

I don't think this calls for me to jump ship elsewhere. It's hard to get past all the flights available out of IAD, or the reality that minimum-tier status on other legacy carriers yields even fewer benefits. OTOH, paying for E+ and my wife's checked bag might make it cheaper for me to book family trips on B6, while sticking with UA for my business travel. I don't think that's the outcome UA wants.

This much seems clear: 1P now looks a lot better in comparison to 2P than before. And, hey, I completely get the business logic behind that. But UA might want to remember that every 1K starts out as a 2P.

Fair enough, guess I read that as only domestic config planes, oops.

thanks!

A GM purchasing on Orbitz is not going to have a clue about E+. They are just going to see a full seat map and no seats together for their family and go with someone else.

Another example of the possible bad leaking out so that much of what is released seems like not so bad. Intentional or not, someone managed expectations.

25,000-74,999 status mile flyers are going to end up having to pay for E+ seating too more than before -- at least those with a family of at least 3 people or more flying together and wanting those seats for the entire group.

The loss of bonus miles from flying for those flying 50k-100k status miles also does nothing to undo the transition of a program into being a frequent shopper program of sorts as this just shifts up the proportion of miles earned from shopping rather than from flying.

Overall, these changes don't negatively impact me much if at all and at least help me with million mile level status. And it positively increases my chance of getting E+ seating.

The reduction in free baggage allowance for 25k level flyers and for Star Silvers is not welcome news as it may just gets us closer to the time of a reduction in free baggage allowance for Star Gold-level flyers too.

The airline addiction to fee revenue is not going away anytime soon, rather it seems to be ramping up.

One thing that might be addressed is whether the "Global Entry" benefit can apply to NEXUS also (which will cost COUA less...) , NEXUS is $50 and gets Global Entry tossed in for free...

I'm a longtime 1p, 1k for 4 years before dropping back. So I, of course, don't like the changes.

Any idea how to figure out lifetime miles? My current UA lifetime is 397k, and my CO is 470k ---will I make MM?

Made me a happy man this morning. So glad there's no revenue requirement. Global entry benefit will be great on my 1-2 intl trips a yr. As a CO plat soon to be 1K, im OK with the changes. Thanks for not having a rev requirement

Today, UACO turned a corner. It took a step in becoming a better airline. Well Done!

Question: UA flights, non-stop, from DEN to Hawaii will become not cpu eligible. [per todays announcement.] Yet ORD to Hawaii are cpu. Are you going to put the new 787 on this route? Use 3 class aircraft? Use same PS aircraft as JFK -SFO,LAX? Please explain?

Wait wait wait... doesn't that say that you can use GPUs on *W* fares or higher?

That would be a HUGE win....

:rolleyes:

Whatev