TomA

I think this change will be slightly positive for people who never book F rewards and often book C or Y rewards. Any GM/Silver/Gold that books an F seat:

1. Will have less miles available to them for other reward bookings.
2. Will NOT be sitting in a C or Y seat.

Personally, I wouldn't spend the extra miles on F in almost all cases.

FlyWorld

RN has been a farce since the takeover, right? If I recall, UA used to provide additional R space for elites, but since the takeover, I've never seen RN > R.

Totally agree.

There is only one thing left after UA was replaced with CO that I felt was a benefit: easy and generous access to saver awards at fair prices. In fact, I recently had to get home quickly from DEL, and I was able to get F space on UA from NRT-SFO on a few hours notice. It was the one and only moment in the last year when I felt a sense of happiness in dealing with UA. There is not one single interaction, out of hundreds of hours on the phone, on email, on the web site, and in airport/aircraft situations, when I felt anything other than disappointment from what's left of this company - except that single moment when I pressed a button, booked F at a fair price, and got home quickly. Now, it seems even that is gone.

TomA

BUT this only affects F right? We still have priority access to C.

chinatraderjmr

The whole R / RN thing is a joke. I have NEVER seen a seat avail in RN unless it was avail in R as well.

However this new O / ON rule is not all bad. Lets face it. UA is a business and if it helps them maximize profits more power to them. I' use GPU's to get from NRT-SFO-JFK a few times a year and count on O class to be avail. If I'm gonna buy business and not get upgraded to first I'm better off either buying business on SQ or even just buying first. But it won't be on UA. I'm sure I'm not alone. From a business stand point it does make more sense to have more pax in first that upgraded from biz then those on award seats. That said its only a smart move if UA still has at least a few O award seats avail in keeping with the "spirit" of the airline THST says it has the best award availability. It seems most FTers use awards in F on foreign airlines anyway so I doubt this will really hurt anyone here.

5khours

For me I do a lot of discretionary travel on O/ON so if there is reduced availability, it means I travel less on UA (not the end of the world but a little inconvenient) and I spend less on UA. I've got a couple million SQ KF miles so I'll probably end up flying quite a lot more on SQ especially since they now offer saver awards for suites.

HumbleBee

I think they should make int'l C>F CPU (and make the non revs wait in line behind them).

Beerman92

1) United is slowly doing away with GF so the upgrading into GF will become moot over time.

2) If you are paying for business and your options on United to UG to first are decreasing then it makes ever more sense to book the carrier with the best business product. That will not be United most of the time.

3) Even when the option to UG on United from J to F was at its peak there were numerous other reasons that high yield pax were willing to fly United's usually inferior international product. Nowadays United has the inferior product and very few incentives for high yield pax to concentrate bookings on United flights.

FlyWorld

In the long run, there will be less and less F.

Not sure if we really have priority in C?

My experience, oddly, has been that F saver is much more readily available than C saver. Now that is no longer true, it means that saver space is simply harder to find in any premium cabin.

mabff

For me this is a change I actually like. Thanks United, i think this is the right move.

For those who are not bound by government restrictions and with the quality of service the only reason to chose United over a *A partner (or in fact any foreign airline) is an access to upgrades, am I wrong?

As somebody who usually buys discounted C on intl flights there are two cases when I choose to fly UA: either I upgrade to F (usually a better option on overnight flights compared with competition, though I still choose competition C for daytime flights) or I travel with a companion who buys a Y ticket and I can upgrade them to C to travel together. The latter case is a rarity.

When UA eliminated dedicated upgrade bucket for C->F upgrades it became almost impossible to confirm upgrade in advance. More over since UA never opens award space on heavily booked flights it meant that upgrade is only available when non-upgradable Z class is also available. With a Z class ticket I fly anything but United. The result: I flew just one UA long-haul segment since August. It looks like now UA might get more of my business. Good for both of us.

5khours

At least as far as I have observed, It's very rare that a non-Z C pax can't get upgraded into GF. Maybe not in advance, but certainly at check-in or the gate. As long as the probability is almost certain, who cares whether it happens at the gate or in advance.

Also, while the UG list for F often appears quite long, it is mostly non-revs who are prioritized below anyone trying to use miles or an instrument.

NWR

I'm no airline equities analyst, but I believe this is the reality of things currently. The airline industry cycles like every other industry. Right now it's in a consolidation cycle (at least US carriers) with fewer competitors and a greater ability to command more revenue. This reaches directly into paid ticket prices and FF programs. There's no reason to utilize a generous FF program to steel business away from the competition. Hence, we are seeing a dilution of FF programs across the fewer carriers now existing. Combined with the mountains of miles purchased by vendors as incentives to steer business their direction, and in turn made available to flyers to purchase awards, the need (from the carrier's standpoint!) to stop this momentum and align US carriers with non-US carrier FF programs is obvious. Have you noticed a trend in ads enticing you to spend miles on goods and services instead of flights? Didn't the CEO of LX, with regard to LX's recent decision to decrease F availability to *A partners, say something like "...everyone in the US is a million miler"?

In 10 years we might see it go back the other way once again. And in the nearer term, maybe you will see F and J products improve inline with higher revenue from them.

kevanyalowitz

^

Red_Rob

IN > I is very rare (I have seen it fleetingly in the past, but none on any searches in 2013).

RN>R is also very rare.

XN>X is still common. So we have priority in Y.

Ari

ON was also screwing up inventory from another perspective. On some flights, UA undersells the F cabin in order to oversell the J cabin. On such flights, UA cannot publish ON because of the risk that the ON space would get taken by an award traveler thereby adding to the overall load of the flight. Before, UA could publish NF on such flights.

stevenshev

I said it on the day Seth gave us the class breakdown last year, I've said it a million times since, and I'll say it again. Why can't they come up with separate award, elite award, upgrade, and elite upgrade buckets? The exact same way it works for C. It's just simply not that complicated.