2014 Upsell Offers to Business/First (UFC/PCU) Questions/Discussion (Paid Upgrades)
Mar 11, 2014, 1:50 pm
#106
Join Date: May 2000
Location: IAH
Programs: UA 1K 2.7MM, Marriott Titanium/LT Plat, IHG Spire
Posts: 3,317
I've got a quick question and sorry if this has been asked and answered. If I get an upsell to purchase an upgrade using miles and do so, would that flight still be eligible for earning miles and PQMs.
If so, would I earn miles at my originally booked class rate or my upgraded class rate?
I've got this offer:
LAS -> EWR
Original class booked: E
Miles to upgrade offer: 15,000 miles
If so, would I earn miles at my originally booked class rate or my upgraded class rate?
I've got this offer:
LAS -> EWR
Original class booked: E
Miles to upgrade offer: 15,000 miles
Mar 11, 2014, 2:09 pm
#107
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: DEN
Programs: UA MM Plat; AA MM Gold; HHonors Diamond
Posts: 15,866
What Route: DEN-ORD
Original Fare Bucket: H
Price Offered: $129
PCU/UFC: UFC
Where it was Offered: OLCI
Accepted: No
Declined the offer as there were 6 of 16 seats open at OLCI. I was #1 on the list and was still there at departure. F ended up booking full and I was in Y.
Original Fare Bucket: H
Price Offered: $129
PCU/UFC: UFC
Where it was Offered: OLCI
Accepted: No
Declined the offer as there were 6 of 16 seats open at OLCI. I was #1 on the list and was still there at departure. F ended up booking full and I was in Y.
Guys...seems we're going to have to fork over the dough going forward (
), as I have been doing more and more of late.
Mar 11, 2014, 2:30 pm
#108
Original Poster
Join Date: Oct 2011
Location: ORD, MKE
Programs: Bonvoy LT Gold, Hilton Silver, Hyatt Discoverist, Hertz PC, National EE
Posts: 710
Absurd
what route: ORD-EWR-ITH
original fare bucket: XN
price offered: $1,409 (seriously?)
PCU/UFC? PCU
Where it was offered/accepted: Popup window at booking.
Accept it or deny it? After I stopped laughing I declined. F is only for the EWR segment on an ERJ-170; the segment to ITH is on a class-less Q300.
The cash price for my itinerary was $806 in Y and $1,099 in F. On similar itinerary (the same EWR segment but an earlier, more convenient ITH segment) M-fare was only $545 and Z-fare was $996.
I can only assume such offers are randomly generated by some poorly developed algorithm. I can't imagine anyone taking such an offer, or why UA would program it to make such absurd offers. I guess they get enough hits for little marginal cost to not feel ashamed.
Regardless, you can see why I'd rather only spend 10,000 miles and a few hrs in EWR rather than pay cash.
Update Mar 12: rebooked itinerary to a later ORD-EWR leg. Same $806 cash instead of miles offer in Y and down to $996 cash for F. Despite F2 did not get the PCU popup window during booking. Perhaps they read this post and felt ashamed.
Update Mar 15: While I didn't get a PCU offer, at OLCI got $259 UFC offer for ORD-EWR leg. There were six people on the upgrade list for that last ER7 F seat. Instead I switched to a later flight with no F availability.
original fare bucket: XN
price offered: $1,409 (seriously?)
PCU/UFC? PCU
Where it was offered/accepted: Popup window at booking.
Accept it or deny it? After I stopped laughing I declined. F is only for the EWR segment on an ERJ-170; the segment to ITH is on a class-less Q300.
The cash price for my itinerary was $806 in Y and $1,099 in F. On similar itinerary (the same EWR segment but an earlier, more convenient ITH segment) M-fare was only $545 and Z-fare was $996.
I can only assume such offers are randomly generated by some poorly developed algorithm. I can't imagine anyone taking such an offer, or why UA would program it to make such absurd offers. I guess they get enough hits for little marginal cost to not feel ashamed.
Regardless, you can see why I'd rather only spend 10,000 miles and a few hrs in EWR rather than pay cash.
Update Mar 12: rebooked itinerary to a later ORD-EWR leg. Same $806 cash instead of miles offer in Y and down to $996 cash for F. Despite F2 did not get the PCU popup window during booking. Perhaps they read this post and felt ashamed.
Update Mar 15: While I didn't get a PCU offer, at OLCI got $259 UFC offer for ORD-EWR leg. There were six people on the upgrade list for that last ER7 F seat. Instead I switched to a later flight with no F availability.
Last edited by megalab; Mar 15, 2014 at 2:58 pm
Mar 11, 2014, 7:41 pm
#109
Moderator, Omni, Omni/PR, Omni/Games, FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Between DCA and IAD
Programs: UA 1K MM; Hilton Diamond
Posts: 67,146
BCN-GVA-IAD, booked in W class. Offered UFC at booking for $3852 for just the GVA-IAD segment.
Absolutely ludicrous and I declined. I could have booked it in PAID business (in P) for both flights (for what intra-Europe C is worth, anyway) for about $950 over W at the time of booking. Z was also available for ~$1200 over that W fare. Just can't fathom what UA was thinking...
Absolutely ludicrous and I declined. I could have booked it in PAID business (in P) for both flights (for what intra-Europe C is worth, anyway) for about $950 over W at the time of booking. Z was also available for ~$1200 over that W fare. Just can't fathom what UA was thinking...
Mar 11, 2014, 9:33 pm
#110
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: PHX
Programs: AS 75K; UA 1MM; Hyatt Globalist; Marriott LTP; Hilton Diamond (Aspire)
Posts: 56,480
"Shame" is not in the UA repertoire.
Mar 12, 2014, 6:31 pm
#111
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: HNL
Programs: UA 1K
Posts: 223
Paid Upgrade offer more than purchasing new P ticket
I am on a K ticket HNL-NRT for $712 RT. A week before the flight I get an email offer for paid upgrade for $4000+ for HNL-NRT and $3000+ for NRT-HNL. Checking the same flights, I can book a roundtrip in P for $4300. Even if I don't use the original ticket I save $2000. How can this possibly be? I can only imagine how much revenue is lost with inane upgrade offers like these.
Mar 12, 2014, 6:41 pm
#112
Moderator: United Airlines
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: SFO
Programs: UA Plat 1.997MM, Hyatt Discoverist, Marriott Plat/LT Gold, Hilton Silver, IHG Plat
Posts: 66,859
This is not uncommon
see examples in
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...-upgrades.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...iscussion.html
see examples in
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...-upgrades.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...iscussion.html
Mar 12, 2014, 8:14 pm
#113
Moderator, Omni, Omni/PR, Omni/Games, FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Between DCA and IAD
Programs: UA 1K MM; Hilton Diamond
Posts: 67,146
Yep; I posted an example of this earlier to one of those threads, too. UFC for a single UA-metal flight was over $3800, but a brand-new P fare covering the UA metal and partner flights was around $2800 less.
Mar 16, 2014, 6:31 am
#114
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: EWR
Programs: UA Plat, KE Morning Calm, Hertz Gold, SPG Plat
Posts: 57
What Route: ORD-SEA
Original Fare Bucket: T
Price Offered: $199
PCU/UFC: UFC
Where it was Offered: OLCI
Accepted: Declined initially but later accepted.
Initially accepted and finished checking in. Upon checking flight status, there was 7 people ahead of me. Tried changing seat and the offer for 199 was still valid. Took upon the offer and bought up. It was a completed booked flight and I wasn't going to take my chances in the middle seat for a 5 hour flight.
Original Fare Bucket: T
Price Offered: $199
PCU/UFC: UFC
Where it was Offered: OLCI
Accepted: Declined initially but later accepted.
Initially accepted and finished checking in. Upon checking flight status, there was 7 people ahead of me. Tried changing seat and the offer for 199 was still valid. Took upon the offer and bought up. It was a completed booked flight and I wasn't going to take my chances in the middle seat for a 5 hour flight.
Mar 16, 2014, 7:24 am
#115
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Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: PSM
Posts: 69,232
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9930; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.1066 Mobile Safari/534.11+)
EWR-OSL last week. Booked in L (233ish PQDs earnt) and offered $829 up to BF. Happily flew in 8A. Pretty sure NRSAs cleared into the seats at departure.
I actually think the $1000ish is reasonable for the OW Biz fare. But I'm not likely to pay that out of my own pocket.
FWIW, if you ever get a copy of your PNR history it will have all the UFC offer details you received in it. At least my most recent one (prior to this OSL trip) did.
EWR-OSL last week. Booked in L (233ish PQDs earnt) and offered $829 up to BF. Happily flew in 8A. Pretty sure NRSAs cleared into the seats at departure.
I actually think the $1000ish is reasonable for the OW Biz fare. But I'm not likely to pay that out of my own pocket.
FWIW, if you ever get a copy of your PNR history it will have all the UFC offer details you received in it. At least my most recent one (prior to this OSL trip) did.
Mar 16, 2014, 7:46 am
#116
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: PHX & AGP
Programs: AA Lifetime PLT, Bonvoy Lifetime Titanium, Hilton Gold
Posts: 11,463
What Route: ORD-SEAOriginal Fare Bucket: T
Price Offered: $199
PCU/UFC: UFC
Where it was Offered: OLCI
Accepted: Declined initially but later accepted.
Initially accepted and finished checking in. Upon checking flight status, there was 7 people ahead of me. Tried changing seat and the offer for 199 was still valid. Took upon the offer and bought up. It was a completed booked flight and I wasn't going to take my chances in the middle seat for a 5 hour flight.
Price Offered: $199
PCU/UFC: UFC
Where it was Offered: OLCI
Accepted: Declined initially but later accepted.
Initially accepted and finished checking in. Upon checking flight status, there was 7 people ahead of me. Tried changing seat and the offer for 199 was still valid. Took upon the offer and bought up. It was a completed booked flight and I wasn't going to take my chances in the middle seat for a 5 hour flight.
Mar 18, 2014, 3:44 am
#117
Moderator, Omni, Omni/PR, Omni/Games, FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Between DCA and IAD
Programs: UA 1K MM; Hilton Diamond
Posts: 67,146
3/18 IAD-SFO-NRT-BKK
Booked W, all segments in C via GPU
At OLCI, offered GF on the two 747 segments for $1300.
At the airport this morning, GF for $939.
Declined though I was tempted. Had it come with PQD and PQM bonus, I would have jumped on it.
Booked W, all segments in C via GPU
At OLCI, offered GF on the two 747 segments for $1300.
At the airport this morning, GF for $939.
Declined though I was tempted. Had it come with PQD and PQM bonus, I would have jumped on it.
Mar 19, 2014, 6:54 am
#118
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: CO hublette
Programs: UA AU MM,HH Diamond,Hyatt Globalist , Marriott Gold
Posts: 2,281
Today CLE-EWR
Original G
Offer $549
Laughter the best medicine.
Original G
Offer $549
Laughter the best medicine.
Mar 19, 2014, 3:10 pm
#119
Used to be MBS PremExec
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Saginaw, MI (MBS)
Programs: UA 1K 1.9MM, Marriott Titanium w/Lifetime Plat, Hilton LIfetime ♢, National Exec, Amex Plat
Posts: 5,722
Annoyed!
I and a non-status coworker were on the same PNR, I split the records this morning to improve at least my chances of an upgrade...
SFO-ORD, tomorrow...Both from a T fare.
Me, $699
Him, $199
One seat in F left, and I won't get an upgrade because they're selling them to non-status folks for $199, yet it's $699 for me.
Thanks, United.
I and a non-status coworker were on the same PNR, I split the records this morning to improve at least my chances of an upgrade...
SFO-ORD, tomorrow...Both from a T fare.
Me, $699
Him, $199
One seat in F left, and I won't get an upgrade because they're selling them to non-status folks for $199, yet it's $699 for me.
Thanks, United.
Mar 19, 2014, 4:29 pm
#120
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Upper Sternistan
Posts: 10,047
Annoyed!
I and a non-status coworker were on the same PNR, I split the records this morning to improve at least my chances of an upgrade...
SFO-ORD, tomorrow...Both from a T fare.
Me, $699
Him, $199
One seat in F left, and I won't get an upgrade because they're selling them to non-status folks for $199, yet it's $699 for me.
Thanks, United.
I and a non-status coworker were on the same PNR, I split the records this morning to improve at least my chances of an upgrade...
SFO-ORD, tomorrow...Both from a T fare.
Me, $699
Him, $199
One seat in F left, and I won't get an upgrade because they're selling them to non-status folks for $199, yet it's $699 for me.
Thanks, United.
If this is how United rewards their good customers, I'm more than happy to be a bad one.
Just terrible.