mahasamatman

Sometimes I think people are looking for a prize for starting the most repetitive threads.

Delta decides to call their airline Delta. Will UA follow?

olouie

I find it funny that united matches almost every negative change Delta makes. But likely only after burning a few hundred consulting hours on it

Often1

All depends what UA is hearing from those booking close in at Y/B fares who are stuck in either E- or lousy E+ seats.

The real question is whether Golds would trade later selection for booze+cheap sandwich.

flymexico2010

If they will continue to devalue Gold elites also, that would help me to proceed with the TK* status match even earlier as planned.
Not even being silver will be interesting anymore for me...
But TK gold will help me with luggage and lounges. That is it. That is what I need.

3Cforme

You can mock the pattern but I'll point out that United didn't confirm it was putting E+ into ex-CO aircraft until DL announced it was putting Economy Comfort sections into its long-haul fleet. Go ahead and check the timing of the press releases.

Not too long after DL announced the expansion of EC into all 2-cabin aircraft, AA announced Main Cabin Extra.

ACVBear

this is what it comes down to. but at a certain point (i assume they're doing this) the loss of revenue from alienating a lot of golds would counter act the happiness of some 1ks that now guarantee e+ seats basically whenever they buy.

I, for one, would probably view that devaluation as the final straw. if there are no benefits why bother? like you posed in the 2nd part there, at least with delta there are some other benefits somewhere else

Mferrari24

If UA actually matches the free booze and upgraded snacks, I might actually stick around for 2015 with them rather than switch over to AA. But i'm not going to hold my breath on that one....

JW76

They better not as its the absolute last thing keeping me flying on their planes and doing a year-end MR to at least qualify for Gold. Take that away and there is just zero incentive to stick with UA.

NikolaTesla

UA FAs have been pretty good to me. I rarely get charged for a box and with drinks they never ask me to pay. I pay once in a while (don't really mind it's on the company) and i received a book from UA with 20 drink tickets in January, I've only used 4. I can't even seem to give them away.

Horrible thing is the int'l flights how they don't offer free booze to everyone.

aacharya

I do like the idea of seat cover differentation. If indeed E+ was a different class, that would be very helpful with respect to poaching. As for simplification, it's still a bit hard to follow that logic - as the last two are the same class of service, but with different fees/cancellation policies.

iflyuaaa

i'm moving to AA because i want the free sandwich. i think this is a good move on dl's part. and i don' tthink 72 hours is really that big of a deal

i think it's funny all the people threatening to leave UA if they change and this is the last straw. i'm sure UA thinks if you stuck w them this long, you're not going anywhere. this devaluation for a gold is MUCH smaller than the mileage earning reduction or the huge award chart devaluation.

sbm12

The change takes effect on 1 March 2015.
The US carriers have yet to make the full commitment necessary to truly offer a different product. Even this really isn't. Until is is sold as a separate cabin it really doesn't matter.

And if seat covers make the difference in carrier choice then I guess we've got very different priorities.

tsz

I think UA used to offer booze for those in Y on trans-pacific flights, but eliminated them in the beginning of this year, right after Delta announced that everyone gets them for free in Y.

channa

No, what happened was:

1. CO and UA merged.
2. Smisek said they weren't sure about the fate of E+ and were analyzing its profitability and viability.
3. Smisek later said that E+ is profitable, even without factoring in the loyalty aspect.
4. DL, fully knowing Smisek's and CO's conservative financial backgound, pounced on this, and realized that if Jeff says E+ is profitable, then it really must be, so they announced EC.
5. UA acknowledged E+ is staying.
6. AA announced MCE.

Basically if Jeff would have kept his mouth shut on E+ and just done it like UA had done for the past decade, he would have retained the competitive advantage that PMUA had. Now everybody has the same product, and DL has gone above and beyond by providing extra padding and now free drinks domestically (they already had free drinks in EC for INTL flights previously).

channa

If the seat covers means extra padding as shown in the video, you bet it will make a difference for a number of folks.