Howard

My #1 complaint about UA is the difficulty in doing these buyups. Even before this new policy, it was YMMV regarding whether the UA agent would agree to waive the change fee. I often had to HUACA multiple times to complete a GG BUYUP. I never understood why they made it so difficult to give them more revenue. Now, rather than making it easier, they've made it even harder to give them more revenue. I just can't imagine running a business this way. At some point people will just start flying on other airlines (as if the MP program changes weren't enough of a reason). As an example, recently I tried flying B6 for the first time in several years. After buying the coach ticket through my corporate travel portal, I called B6 and the agent happily collected the fare difference without ever mentioning a change fee. In fact, B6 even publishes on its website that there is no change fee to buy up to Mint. Let's see - a smooth buy up experience, and a great flight in Mint. Hmmm...

bocastephen

my understanding from the agency brief is the policy was likely driven by corporate customers pushing back. They don’t want to lose insight into the tickets and who is doing what with each ticket, and it’s likely once the ticket is reissued by United, they lose the discount and/or revenue contribution credit for their account.

some corporations just don’t want their employees to fly up front even with their own money, and we’ve had evidence of such strange, warped policies from the various Travelbuzz threads over the years. It’s not logical, but neither are many of these corporate travel policies.

glbltvlr

True. I used to work for a Fortune 50 company that prohibited all non-coach travel overseas, including 12+ hour flights to Asia. Interestingly enough, a few years back, my self paid upgrade to business was reported by either United, Amex or Concur to my company and I was called into HR to explain. After that, everyone was required to get VP approval in advance for all personal upgrades.

Of course it quickly became common knowledge I was doing this. Cue the constant jokes about being overpaid. I am so glad to be done with that crap.

big V

Here's a data point.

Booked UA international itin through corporate agent 12/1 for travel 12/6.

Phoned UA 1K desk on 12/3 to upfare to Premium Plus using personal credit card. While she did have to call the rate desk (couldn't get the price pulled up herself), agent was able to change my itin.

Aussienarelle

So I am on an R fare with LH which means I cannot use Plus Points for an upgrade. It was going to cost me $400 to upgrade to an A fare on LH. However, it would only cost $300 to upgrade to Polaris on UA. Thought that was a bargain only to discover they wanted to charge me an additional $300 for the change fee, i.e. $600 in total, since it was switching from a LH flight to a UA flight. Yes I know the wiki says only same flight for GGBUYUP but thought I would ask. The CS rep asked the rate desk to waive the change fee and the rate desk declined.

For an airline that says it is all about the money it was surprising they would not waive the change fee to move to UA metal since they would then end up with all the revenue instead of sharing with LH.

Now if PQP included the change fee I may have considered paying the change fee. As it is I think I will keep the ticket the same and see if LH will let me pay a fee to them to upgrade when I actually travel.

iapetus

Maybe there is some agreement between alliance members to discourage them from doing this for exactly that reason (one member "snatching" the revenue back from a fellow alliance member)?

paperwastage

well, is the route considered a JV metal-neutral b/w LH and UA? or maybe it's more complicated than that, since we don't know how the revenues are split

jsloan

So, here's the thing: GG BUYUP is for changing cabins on the same flight, which you explicitly call out. There are very limited exceptions listed in the thread -- almost none, actually.

Any upgrade money you pay to LH won't count as PQP either -- unless it's the $400 to move to an A fare. But I think I'd rather spend $600 for a confirmed J seat than $400 plus 40 PlusPoints for a waitlisted one.

Almost certainly, meaning that it doesn't make any difference to UA which airline is flown.

WineCountryUA

On JV routes the sharing goes both ways, when you fly UA, LH gets part of that revenue on those JV routes.

Aussienarelle

You convinced me. Paid the change fee!

Interesting that UA does not care whether UA or LH. The trip is in March and at this stage I guess it is probably better I an not transiting through the EU (from LHR) with the whole Brexit thing and immigration. Had not focused on that when booking the original ticket and not to have that potential complicating hassle is probably worth the change fee alone.

So Polaris it is, and bizarrely enough 1A. I thought that seat was always blocked as a crew seat. It was open....

Again, thank you. UA should pay you a commission for the upsell! 😁

SuperFlyBoy

This!:

Joint venture between LH and UA is revenue-sharing.