okrogius

EWR-SFO 350
EWR-SAN 251
EWR-SEA 286
SFO-MIA 391

There is far more than one cherry picked route. Sure, there are just as many accurately priced fares; however, if you do happen to fly one of these routes this does impact you. Similarly, there are wide discrepancies like this on other airlines in addition to United (some routes are 600, some are 300.) AA/AS/DL exclude YCA from full-fare upgrades by the way.

Is this a problem? On select routes. Are agressive upsells a bigger problem? Probably.

flyhawaii

Government fares are a threat to non government flyers upgrades as well as lost revenue and loyalties from other non goverment flyers as YCA fares are much cheaper than any if not most Y fares even with discounts.
If anyone is a premier and there is an upgrade available for instant premier upgrades and the fare class qualifies they get the upgrade. Also for domestic and international travel mileage upgrades, they have a much lower mileage upgrade requirements. I feel UA needs to control government fare upgrades. I found this link a few weeks ago which shows the booking for governement fares and prices. Unfortunalty these fares shown are not bookable unless you use a government credit card. When I am logged under my 1K account, any fares in M class or higher shows as instant premier upgrade fare.

https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...v/default.aspx

exerda

Personally, I'd be happy to exempt all deeply-discounted full Y fares (be they corporate or government) from instant upgrades and/or give them lower priority on the upgrade ladder. I don't think that would even drive away many corporate pax as UA could just offer them a discounted F fare in its place and they could buy F instead of Y, if F is that big of a reason for them buying UA fares to begin with.

Then again, I am not a govvie (just a contractor), and my corporation, though they have discounted UA fares on some routes, don't have anywhere near the discounts some do... nor are we allowed to buy full Y.

As a side note, I was irked when we signed an exclusive deal with Marriott to always offer government per-diem rates (as I have Hilton status) under the caveat that we are required to use Marriott. I kind of wish we'd get UA to give us near-government rates, too, in return for exclusive travel, but with my luck, we'd end up with DL as our required carrier.

bwiflyer01

By your logic, the same could also be true:
Corporate contract fares are a threat to non corporate contract flyers' upgrades as well as lost revenue and loyalties from other non corporate contract flyers as some corporate contract discounted Y fares are much cheaper than any if not most Y fares even with discounts.

Also, for the people pointing out the YCA fares and "guessing" that no corporate contract fares come close, let's talk once you are in possession of all of UA's corporate contracts. Until then, none of us has any idea how low the corporate contract fares go.

Beerman92

This is not what the salesperson from United told me when I asked. He stated that the Passplus secure fares are not published fares and are treated separately/differently than published fares and that the M-fare would not be eligible for instant upgrade. I actually don't have an issue with that since why would anyone in this program buy anything but M domestically if they allowed the instant up. I have no idea if he was correct or not as I did not renew my contract based on the changes they rolled out. Just in case people don't know this is what the proposed changes were that I saw:

1) Fares no longer book into F/J/Y they now book into F/C/M
2) No more 50% bonus miles
3) Increased minimum initial investment for the individual contract $15k to $25k
4) Decrease from unlimited additional $5k or more deposits at no charge to one additional $5k deposit and a 5% fee for any more than the one
5) No longer can pay for initial deposit or additional investments by credit card only wire transfer or check
6) Fuel surcharges no longer included in the fares
7) Prices increased across the board and it went from a mileage based fare to zones

They range from deal breakers #1 to nuisances like most of the other ones (no more credit cards? Really? I signed up for PassPlus in the first place because of an effective marketing campaign by AMEX so this one had me scratching my head). The price increases are significant but not a deal breaker for me.

As for corporate contracts and discounts there are accounts I know of that get around 50% off on published F/J/Y.

chinatraderjmr

+1. Sounds like a lot of people making a big deal about nothing (and I don't work for the govt or get govt rates)

jacroweORD

so i just used the link provided and it showed me a U fare for travel on 7/25 that is available at a MUCH lower L fare currently. The difference for what I can book is about 600.00 less...doesn't seem like their fare provides much advantage based on this link

aCavalierInCoach

I'll be impressed if they actually get SHARES to differentiate

Agreed...

Didn't realize the changes beyond the pricing were so draconian.

qukslvr619

So $1 billion in revenue, and fares that don't ticket until 3 days before departure so by which point upgrades would have started to process. Yes clearly govt flyers are a threat to the whole frequent flyer system because using the logic applied here all govt travelers book into full Y and then get upgraded. If UA/CO felt it was such a threat to revenue integrity or that it didn't contribute to the bottom line they would have clearly excluded it. It's ok I can easily take all this so called $20k worth of cheap travel and upgrades to DL since I must be flying $200 transcons in F. Rolls eyes

flyhawaii

The government travelers do not actually always use these fare. These are fares that are available to them. Also routes which are awarded to other airlines do show up and in some cases higher than the regular rate. But for routes awarded to UA, they are significantly cheaper. Such as my regular routes, HNL-LAX, HNL-SFO, HNL-NRT these fares are so cheap considering the higher booking classes and fare difference from the regular rates. I now know who has been upgraded before me or took my upgrade on most of my regular flights. Government travelers and TOD upgrades.

golfingboy

So, UA would rather sacrifice high yielding flyers for lower yielding flyers with higher volume? Especially on routes like IAD-SFO [which VX now has and probably will next year], IAD-LAX, etc.

$1 billion means nothing if the fare is too low.

Whether anybody likes it or not, UA eventually will eliminate instant upgrades for government flyers to protect the integrity of the status+fare paid upgrade scheme. The corporate contract market is a bigger one than the government market, so once they fine tune that, I bet they will turn over to YCA fares. Some airlines have done that already.

Superguy

Again, not as much as you think. While there are city pair routes for a lot of pairs, where the vast majority going to be going from? To/from WAS. You're going to have a lot less competition on those other routes as there will be significantly less govie flyers on those routes. How many govie flyers do you think are going to be going between SFO and MIA?

Correlation doesn't equal causation. UA also used prohibit YCAs from upgrades. However, now, it's been worse for EVERYONE since 3/3. That can't be blamed on govie fares, though it is a popular scapegoat.

One thing you, and others, have repeatedly failed to get is that most agencies don't ticket until 3 days out, which means the only way they'll get the upgrade is if there are still instants available at that point. It's a rare exception to be ticketed before 3 days, and you can't upgrade until you're ticketed! However, by that time, you're already past the GS and 1K windows, and probably event he PLAT windows. It's debatable whether UA would give them at that point, as there have been many complaints of GS on Y fares in that window that have ridden in the back while the TODs sat up front.

+1. I don't get the rates either.

MSPeconomist

I'm not convinced that the distribution os status levels is the same for government employees who use government fares. Instead of a corporate travel contract that would move most employee travel to the preferred carrier, the government system of bidding for individual city pairs means that most people who don't always to the same place end up with their status miles distributed over various domestic airlines. Hence, I would expect government travelers to generally have lower status that corporate travelers traveling the same amount because not all companies require purchase of the cheapest fare across all carriers, but instead some either have a preferred contract or permit the traveler to pick their flights with minimal rules that force the employee to use a variety of airlines.

Superguy

In whose opinion? Yours or UA's?

The entire system has no integrity any more since 3/3. What's there to protect?

So what happens if UA does institute this change, and people still aren't getting your upgrades. What will you people b!tch about then?

Yes, because ALL government fliers have tons of miles and/or can afford to upgrade their flights.

While there are govie 1Ks out there, the fact of the matter is that they're few and far between. Most are at most silvers, and many are spread out between a bunch of airlines that don't have enough on any one to have status. Partially because travel budgets have been cut, and partially because depending on where their jobs go, they may have to fly different airlines so their miles are spread all over the place. And yes, there are even ones that prefer AA and DL over UA, or even credit miles to US!

I'll break it down so it's simple to understand. The few things people don't get about govie fares:

1) Most are NOT YCA fares. Most book in a lower bucket
2) Very few tickets are ticketed before 3 days before travel
3) You can't be upgraded until you travel. Period. UA won't do it.
4) It takes an exception to ticket earlier, and that exception isn't always granted
5) Before most govies can even get in the upgrade queue, at least 2-3 upgrade sweeps have happened
6) Most govies are Kettles
7) Many govies don't travel. At most, many will travel only 1-2 times a year for their jobs
8) Govies can take TOD upgrades just like any other Kettle. Yes, TODs suck. Blame UA, not the govie for taking it.
9) Many of the routes people are complaining about are hub-to-hub and were historically hard to upgrade even as a 1K anyway. IAD-LAX was always a tough upgrade. Why the rush to blame govies?

Now look at this. Is this really that hard to grasp? And I'm not even a govie.

And top of all this, there isn't any evidence that govies are the ones taking all the upgrades. It's all conjecture and speculation.

And with the stories on here that GS on Y tickets are sitting in the back, you think govies are taking upgrades from them? No! They're sitting in the back too. Those GS would be upgraded before any govie, and there are few govies that would be GS anyway. If the YCA fares are so cheap, do you know how many it would take to reach the money threshold to be invited to GS?

The sense of entitlement and misunderstanding (or the refusal to understand) here is amazing.

qukslvr619

$1 billion means nothing if the fare is too low? You could have $5 on one route and $1000 fares on another....you are still generating $1 billion in revenue. And remember this...city pair awards are not always given to the nonstop carrier. Meaning its possible to underbid with a schedule that requires connections. So clearly UA must see some value to bid on LAXIAD at the current rate in such that its not diluting the overall yields.

Bottom line is that govt travel is down, policies are more restrictive, and if people need to get to DC they will probably fly to DCA where UA doesn't have most of the awarded contracts.

We can go back and forth all day on this but until you have stats that say the F cabin is full of YCA upgrades I dont buy this one bit. How can I make it any clearer
1) PNRs arent ticketed in most cases (not all) until 3 days prior so GS, 1K, Plat would have cleared assuming the current hierarchy
2) Most travelers are not booking YCA with the knowledge of instant upgrades
3) The percentage of upgrades that are being lost are more than likely due to TODs, higher elite levels, etc, these upgrades represent a small subset
4) In the case that 1 and 2 dont apply, people like me are high revenue govt travelers and I think I've earned the benefit to upgrade like any other corp traveler.