Greysword

At least United has their excellent customer service to fall back on... oh wait!

I agree with dublin487. Given yesterday's news, I was going to apply for the MileagePlus Explorer card, either today or tomorrow, to get started on the $25k. However, I think I'll try for the Southwest, BA or the Alaska Airline card, instead. Whew, that was a close one; thanks for the heads up, UA!

As a 'not frequent enough but several times per year' flyer, this has a significant impact on my travel, so I don't like it. Not worth trying for Premier if using my miles for the family to go with me will cost more should a change be required (like almost a whole round trip ticket!)

ffI

I think of UA as CO, which was always very close to the DL model.
So the "fleecing"will continue.
It remains to be seen what happens to AA/US.
If they are clever over the long term, they will try to keep customers.

Why?
In my mind, I am making whole family get the UA Explorer.
I at least get free trips, even if I have to cancel that is fine, my real cost was zero and UA paid for my free trips.

After the minimum spend, get the SW cards when a higher offer comes out

JAaronT

I'm actually kind of surprised they didn't exempt or at least reduce fees for credit card holders. That seems to be the way everything else is going.

utl567

That's a shame.

goalie

Yup and let's see how many other shoes can drop <feh>

Agreed ^

Caller: I'd like to cancel my award ticket
MP Rep: Mp number and pin please
Caller: Provides Information
MP: Thank you, and it's all done
Sound made when MP Rep pushes the cancel reservation key: KA-CHING!

Total time elapsed 5 minutes and not bad work if you can get it

CFFrost

This really is terrible news, given how terrible award available can be on desirable routes. People were forced to book far out so that they could secure a seat. My only hope (and I know it will never come to fruition), is that by adding this fee they will be able to increase award availability so that people don't need to book 330 days out to secure a seat. I am pondering what my best course of action is now for an Aug / Sept 2014 trip to CPT, with stop in LHR in business. Surely I shouldn't book each leg at 330 days out like had previously been recommended. It would end up costing me hundreds of dollars in fees (for 2 pax) to do that! What kind of 'award' is that?

I agree - I kept reading all the posts for some sort of caveat that exempts non-elites through credit card spend or some other means. Clearly the airlines are dependent on the income generated from their relationship with credit issuers.

Just yesterday I was having a conversation with a loyal WN flier (who earns CP the hard way) who was adamant that CP, combined with the flexibility of WNs no-fee structure, is far more valuable than the other legacy programs. I'm really starting to think that he is right. There is no value in the legacy carriers as they keep stripping away the benefits of their programs. At least with WN you know what you're going to get - and you aren't going to be surprised by some midnight shellacking.

Mr. Elliott

Wishful thinking, the CEO of AA after the merger will be Doug Parker, the current head of US, and he is a major proponent of adding fees, remember he was the one who tried to charge for all soft beverages onboard including water and when all the other airlines did not follow his lead, he had no choice but to rescind it and go back to complementary soft beverages.

Also in the past he tried to make the lowest fares non cancelable and non changeable once the ticket was issued, the term he used was “use it or lose it” and he even said that the ticket would not be refundable even if the passenger died before the flight, he also dropped that policy when the other airlines did not follow him on that.

I believe US also charges non elites for advance seat selection so I am sure he will implement this at AA and lets see how fast both DL and UA follow his lead.

If anything Doug Parker will surely test the industry with as many additional fees he can think of, do I see a fee for carry on luggage in the future at AA, yes and stay tuned, because the worst is yet to come. Once one airline implements a major change or adds a fee, now with only 2 other competitors it’s a matter of days before the others jump on the bandwagon.

Mr. Elliott

anc-ord772

I would like to point out that UA Insider posted an update at 2am, I'm sure those are not his normal working hours. Aaron did not have to be that responsive to the FT community.

Thanks!

rankourabu

oh please, that was only done because the website updated (probably at 12am Central), and we got a whiff of the news first. Otherwise it would have been another grandoise morning 'enhancement announcement' with great spin and all.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

I know I'm swimming against the current here, but once I ticket an award, I usually don't change it. People who ticket awards take planning flexibility and inventory away from other people, which is fine if they actually use the award tickets. The fees make it more likely that one will only book awards if they are more certain they will use them.

Pls don't bother with the flaming, because I can list the responses. I'm just stating my opinion and respect the viewpoints of others (especially the family issues).

I also agree UA could use some PR schooling. They can't keep taking away a bunch of (what may have perceived as) decent benefits or increase various fees w/o tossing in the odd explicit real enhancement once in a while. So far, I just see implicit enhancements for the remaining 1Ks and MM status in 2015 after the winnowing-by-revenue announcement yesterday or the day before.

anc-ord772

Right... because UA Insider posts corporate updates from different departments on the website as well as focus on his day job. This was not an emergency, and no one called him at midnight because someone saw it and posted on FT. He could have posted in the morning, or not at all. I prefer to recognize that.



+ 9 bajillion trillion.

DiverDave

Dude, that's seriously grasping at straws.

David

Kacee

This is potentially a brutal change for nonelites, especially if they use points for family vacations. I definitely have some sympathy for the family of four that gets hit with a $200/per redepost charge.

But it is also an instance of UA advantaging premiers over credit card holders, and the devaluation of status vs. nonelite credit card benefits is an issue that many FTers have been screaming about lately.

I wonder also how much of this has to do with the number of redemptions now being made by credit card churners who otherwise generate no revenue for UA.

amolkold

He was also scooped!

A better airline would give warning and advance notice.

villox

I would venture to say that most non-elites don't even realize that they can change their award travel dates for free if they keep the cities the same. Again, just a guess, but this is more likely to affect people who were holding inventory as placeholders because they didn't know for sure when they would be able to travel and thus were taking advantage of this benefit.

Frankly I'm not sure why this wasn't done sooner.