cesco.g

Sadly, it is, as Kacee certainly can confirm.

CO_Nonrev_elite

This sort of thing is what infuriates flyers. This is the sort of thing that the new CEO needs to address. Business choices like charging for seats and bags is a business choice, selling the floor out under your best customers in a less than transparent way is disgusting and top of the list of what pisses people off.

As per every metric (internal and external), every poll, every DOT statistic and per pretty much every article in the media. United is failing badly to their customers. It is NOT simply just a few folks whining on a message board.

If United were to publish in their Mileage Plus guide that Unlimited Complimentary upgrades will be given to members only after all other measures to sell them to absolutely anyone other than you have been exhausted, then I would say fair enough.

Bonehead

Well, I finally saw this nonsense in action a couple of weeks ago. I was at MAF (Midland, TX airport) and a young lady with a MAF-DEN-LAX ticket was checking in on her phone and was asking the GA whether "this offer" was for a confirmed FC seat, or what. I offered to help out, and sure enough, she was being offered a $119 upgrade DEN-LAX with 7-10 folks on the list.

As per the Monkees, "I'm a believer". Grrrrrrr

Oh, and she dilly-dallied and the two available FC seats vanished right in front of her eyes.

The GA had no clue what was going on w/r/t the offer, btw. SkyWest, I think.

Kacee

It really is a poor long term business strategy. My buy up price never dropped below $229. I'm confident that the pax who bought up ahead of me got better offers (speculation informed by many, many reports in this forum).

Then the GAs filled the middle seat next to me with a standby despite approx. a dozen empty E+ seats. Based on my position on the waitlist (#1 on a G fare) I'm pretty sure I was the only 1K in the cabin. I guess the days of seat blocking for elites died long ago.

All that said, it was a short flight, we were on time, 7A is a good seat on the 738, and the wifi worked well. And I just had some killer dive Mexican here in Phoenix. So not such a bad morning

Laurlyn23

Can anyone explain the following to me?

Two family members, booked separately for a flight ORD-PHX next March. Both are Gold.

Family Member A shows upgrade to first on PHX-ORD leg for $109/each with 9 seats available for all three travelers on the reservation.

Family Member B shows upgrade on same leg for $610 with 4 seats available. This family member is only person on PNR.

Outbound leg is the same, only A has offer of $344 w/ 9 seats available and B has $789 with 1 seat available.

?!

redheadtempe33

It is completely random. As I posted upthread, I booked a flight for the same route, and UA wanted $300 and change for F. I go back a few days later to see if there are better seats available (in coach) and I get an offer for $109 for one leg.

I look now, and it is $354 (which is $30 more than when I looked this morning) for the return leg.

I'm leaning towards bad programming/IT, but I have no idea. It could be (I don't know if UA is this crafty), that they offer something for a ridiculous price ($300+) and then lower it later to show what a great "deal" the second offer is. UA certainly wouldn't be the first company to try this approach.

I will say too, that I know airlines update their prices multiple times a day (generally 3), so this could be the difference between K (or whatever) and P fares just fluctuating depending on the updated pricing, but who the hell knows.

CO_Nonrev_elite

In this instance, I am voting for cookies. United tracks what you are looking at, and if you keep returning to the same thing, they often increase the pricing as they think you are already hooked. Usually I log out, clear my cache and go into private mode and it often reverts back to the lower price

bizzarODog

I figured as much... hopefully they don't give me a hard time

Honestly I understand the general agita around FT regarding the whole concept of selling upgrades at check-in, but for those saying its a "bad business strategy", I'm not sure we have enough information to draw that conclusion. I mean, whats the average buy-up price, the normal uptake rate, how much revenue are they losing from elites who are being put off, how much revenue are they gaining from kettles who buy up and then book toward UA as a result? I'd agree that offering very frequent fliers significantly higher buy up prices feels like a slap in the face, but how many of those are basically at captive hubs with limited alternatives? Whats the value for UA in offering those people cheap upgrades? I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but I don't think these types of strategy decisions are made in a vacuum. Ultimately I do think this move is detrimental to UA in the long run, but public companies dont always make the right decisions when it comes to long term gains vs. short term expectations

fly2work

September 13th DEN-IAH-AMS

U Fare

Offered $649 to BF (ZN Fare)
Offer showed 2 seats available with 36 on upgrade list through app, BF IAH to AMS cleared straight away upon payment. First from DEN to IAH cleared about an hour later into R.

Bought without even thinking, even though I had a GPU applied I was showing #3 on the list at 24 hours. Ultimately only 1 person got upgraded from IAH to AMS, the wife was well happy the husband was mad as hell he was stuck in E+ as he was originally #2 on the list!

Kacee

These are valid points. But there are enough reports here of non-status pax being offered dirt cheap buy-ups for me to be comfortable concluding UA is causing net harm to itself through this particular ancillary revenue grab. It's not uncommon for UA to sell the upgrade to a non-status pax for less than it would have received in baggage fees had that passenger flown economy.

The sale of upgrades is one thing. The price discrimination against elites is quite another.

CO_Nonrev_elite

Every single poll, metric, article disagrees with you. The issue is that for years, upgrades were given at a standard rate of almost always for 1k, 70% of the time for Platinums, sometimes for golds and occasionally for silvers. In the last few years it has dropped to more or less never for anyone. I fly the same patterns year in and year out, and I went from 90%+ year in and year out down to about 15% last year and about 6% this year. I have also been waitlisted on PS flights with 12 of the 28 seats open at the 2hr check in, not getting the upgrade and seeing offers of $129 for a lay flay bed across the country. They certainly didn't offer me the upgrade at that price or anything near that price, but did to other statusless folks with us. The business model at the moment is to do ANYTHING at all to avoid giving the seat to an elite for free. This business model is their choice, but it has had me reward them with about 60% less revenue from our team. I very much doubt I am the only person that sees a significantly diminished return for my loyalty.

Lastly, what do you actually get for being elite now ?

1. No Bag Fees - (I don't check anyways, and they didn't charge for it anyways a few years ago). Therefore they added a charge, and then made it like they are doing you a favor for not charging you.

2. Seat Assignments - Same thing, they didn't used to charge for it, then they add the charge and tell you that you won't have to pay.

3. Upgrades - No matter how you slice it, these have for the most part gone away. I'm not saying they never happen, but it has dropped to the point of being a huge surprise when it happens. Again, 12 years of one statistic, drops 90% over two years. It is NOT a statistical anomaly.

4. Protection in Irrops - Gone

5. CPU/GPU - This is the only benefit I see. I don't find them as difficult to use as others on this forum, but again, they are far harder to use than they used to be, and I have certainly had more fail than clear. In most cases, without status you can do the cheap buyup for less than you spend for loyalty.

What exactly are they giving us ?

PV_Premier

this was a good buy on your part. just make sure you get the GPU back, as it probably will not re-credit automatically. the GPU is arguably worth more than $649 provided that you can use it before it expires, and apply it into vacant R space at booking. also, hopefully your GPU did not support your upgrade from DEN to IAH...

fly2work

Was the first thing I did, being a 1/2017 GPU it has a lot more value to me!

diburning

BOS-ORD tomorrow, K fare. $229 on the manage reservations screen. Declined

$159 at OLCI on the computer. Declined
$129 at OLCI on iPhone app. Accepted. For some reason it upgraded me to R. Is that the usual case? I vaguely remember previous buy-ups booking into PN.

No status. 8/20 un-selected seats in F at time of buy-up. 16/20 booked according to the app. 2 standbys on the standby list who are also on the upgrade list

It's a very full flight. I bit because I wanted the space. Glad to see I didn't take someone's potential CPU.

CMK10

IAH-SAT tomorrow on an L Fare. CRJ-700. After check-in I was offered the upgrade for $89. Declined obviously. Currently #2 for 3 seats so there's a slim chance at an upgrade.