rankourabu

I am the same way. I dont "have" to be anywhere, but I like flying, and I like traveling, my flights are always 'going somewhere'.

Leisure travel is not necessarily cheap either.


Business flyers on this board dont seem to get that there is a middle ground - like 90% of people flying - between work flyers and MR'ers.

TA

As you say, I doubt the MR thing is as big as people here may be conditioned to believe.

The bigger thing is that UA is trying to optimize the sizing and exploiting of its fleet and passengers more. It's not that they will disincentivize MRs from happening. Those seats would be filled by someone taking an equally low price anyway. More like, they will shrink the size of planes on long thin routes, cut cabin sizes and increase average ticket prices to cut at the last profitable passenger they want. And not just fill big planes willy nilly with "loyal" customers who don't pay much.

MrAOK

I think there will be a little loss for United from fewer MRs, but far more in losses from losing the loyalty elite benefits generate.

If you are never going to achieve Elite status, it's far more likely that you will buy a ticket based on price. So if they price right, United's move is the best thing that ever happened to JetBlue, Virgin America and possibly Southwest

WineCountryUA

I have never seen any convincing evidence that is significant revenue generated by MRers. It seems more likely this is a small, niche activity of which a dis-proportioned members of FT participate in. I base this on the fact that among the hundreds of regular flyers I have contact with only a handful have every heard of MR and none actually participate in MR. Additionally based on reports on FT, while some UA customer facing staff are aware MRers, many report some GA/FA/phone agents ... are amused to learn of this activity.

I agree -- and believe the loss of the loyalty of the moderate regular flyer is a far more significant financial issue than MRers.

PDXPremier

+1...ALL of my flying is a mix of leisure/mileage runs (sometimes the line between the two does get blurred such as the recent IST runs where it WAS a mileage run but lots of MRers stayed a few days to explore such a fascinating city).

I do think there are more folks like us than people may think...that said, UA will lose 100% of my travel $$ since I typically look for fares in the 3cpm range which is nowhere close to the PQD amount requirement. Since I've already booked enough UA flights to get Silver for 2014, next year will basically be a year with almost unused UA status since I need to begin working on MVP status with AS starting in January (the 50% instead of 25% RDM bonus on AS/DL/AA flights will be a welcome treat when I finally get to MVP ).

PV_Premier

excellent points and I personally have already been seeing it happening. fares that used to reliably be available for $200-250 last year are now $300-350 with the same advanced purchase and the same fare buckets.

mgcsinc

United can't do this on its own. If they could magically increase fares, they would have long ago. The markets, not UA's unilateral behavior, determine prices. See, e.g., EWR-SFO/LAX.

unavaca

Nah, MRs were taking up cheap fare buckets, which will now be taken by Kayakers. This is a win for UA: they'll sell the cheap space for the same price but won't have to pay for any elite benefits on that cheap customers ^

Smart.

BearX220

Exactly -- it's too small an asterisk to worry about. Except perhaps in December when a tiny bit of MR revenue may have helped a bit in the dead period 1-20 December. But probably not even then.

Only on FT does anyone imagine MRing is a significant phenomenon.

But in a cooperative de facto cartel whose members' pricing and policies seem to move in lockstep it is a whole lot easier. Mergers = reduced market forces and greater pricing power.

coloneltigh

+1 I used to work in consulting and still have friends in that industry. Lots of travel. In that group, most people when they are in that 95% travel situation just want to get home. While getting upgraded is nice, it's not an obsession like it is here. And certainly, no one I worked with would deliberately route themselves in such a way to maximize mileage or to get an upgrade.

Right. You gotta believe that the person directing their business to UA to get status before PQD but won't make now status because they have to buy the lowest fare is saying to themselves F-- it. Why put up with crappy service and aircraft when I can fly B6, VX, DL, etc for around the same price when there's no loyalty benefits?

alex_b

Simple answer, no. There isn't much revenue to lose from mileage runners as they're a tiny tiny tiny tiny fraction of UAs loads.

Anyone who thinks that the move to PQDs is about mileage runners needs their head examined. I suspect the PQD phenomenon is trying to thin out/change behaviour from two groups of travelers:
1. People who get the benefits of UA status domestically (and for int'l lounge access) but who fly internationally on other *A carriers (like me). UA bear the cost of status but get little of the lucrative int'l revenue.
2. People who are organized and book lots of discounted restricted tickets well in advance, e.g. lots of bi-coastal consultants who know they're travelling week in week out between two cities and book way in advance. We are supposed to get CEO approval if we book less than 2-weeks in advance and I'm sure many other IT firms are the same. Again UA gives them lots of perks but the don't get the margins of Y/B/M flyers who book day of travel.

The number of firms buying domestic first/int'l business flexible tickets for everyday employees appears to be dwindling (at least in IT) and this will be forcing UA to change their way of incentivizing higher spend from their elites.

mgcsinc

Demand before was kayakers + MRers. Now it's kaykers + fewer MRers. Again, basic economic theory doesn't permit this "kaykers will replace MRers" idea. Either capacity needs to drop, or new kayakers need to materialize.

Sure. But less healthy FF programs actually make prices drop. People need to remember that the entire point of FF programs is to raise prices. When people weep about the end of FF programs as we know them, they don't seem to get that the FF programs are designed to raise prices.

drewguy

This thread has a bunch of calculations, it appears many somewhat erroneous (and some dated because of jet fuel prices), but they all suggest that the fuel-burn costs of carrying a marginal passenger is under $100, perhaps well so, for a mid-con flight.

Sure there are some other marginal costs (drinks/nuts/boarding card printout), but most of the others are fixed for the flight.

unavaca

New kayakers will materialize. After the MRs ate up all the cheap space, Kayakers went over to DL or AA (who still had cheap buckets open). With the pesky MRers gone, more Kayakers will see UA's lowest buckets instead of going over to DL or AA.

In short, UA doesn't need MRers -- they'll more than fill the space with kayakers.

kmfdm91

I was going to write this in the 2014 changes, but it makes more sense for it here...

While I am a MR & very cheap leisure traveler, I can most certainly say that UA will not lose much if anything at all by getting rid of the MRers.

For 2013 thus far, i'm at 62,534 EQM at US$1,647 PQD...not very beneficial for UA, self admittedly.

That said, UA will either not fill those seats at all (not likely) or sell them other Kayakers (most likely) who will fly for the price I paid or even higher.

The key takeaway from this is that the Kayakers will not use/accrue RDMs or any elite benefits on a large scale and it in turn keeps UA's liabilities a lot lower than if I were on them.

In UA's best interests are getting the stupidest, least knowledgeable, least active flyers on their flights every so often. By doing that, the passenger's complaints are overlooked, UA's cost AFTER the flights (RDM, elite perks, etc) are slim and most importantly - they have the opportunity to charge them for EVERYTHING - food, bags, e+, ToDs...you name it.

UA doesn't want cheap elite flyers, and I get that, but they do want cheap flyers because they can get that ancillary revenue they so lovingly grab.

-jeremy