phltraveler

This would be potentially damaging to a lot of business travelers using corporate travel agencies. Right now pretty much any fare class domestically in Y is equal for an elite (except for instant upgrades on Y/B/M for 1K, priority on CPU, and RDMs based on spend) so if you pick the lowest fare you're good to go. My company nags on policy technically being book lowest fare but allows you to pick a higher economy fare for time/carrier alternate airport preference (as long as it isn't ridiculously high in price, e.g. above $1K domestic roundtrip).

There's a giant red letter bold-and-italicized warning on the last page before confirming a booking which tells people booking Delta tickets that they have to click the "Fare Rules" link per segment to see if they have Booking Class E (and if they do, non-refundable completely, with no advance seat assignment [and a randomly assigned seat at check-in for no possibility of changes], but you do get miles).

Given that miles are spend based I would be very surprised to see fares that didn't earn miles, but airlines are keen to try anything nowadays it seems...

Often1

Unless anybody has solid data, I'll stick with what DL and AA have and UA likely has as well. People will jump at a chance to save $15-20 and if they get stuck in a middle seat near the lav or have $0 value if they can't make their flight, so be it.

Businesses which require their people to book "lowest logical" will beed to define these fares out of "logical." In the business environment they make zero sense. Not because of miles, UG's and other perks, but because they can't be changed and retain no value.

If a business won't change, that's a labor issue for the employee, not a fare issue for the carrier.

exerda

Can UA please make these no frills fares not upgradeable including via TOD et all? Worst would to be sitting on a wait listed instrument and have it sold out from under you to a rock bottom fare with a TOD.

Soccerdad1995

If businesses start requiring people to book fares that don't earn miles, then I predict that the amount of business travel will drop dramatically.

This will be very good for the airlines biggest customers (companies), very bad for airlines, and I would argue, a net positive for actual travelers (less time on the road, less crowded planes when we do travel, etc).

DenverBrian

Perhaps not so far off. It's a constant battle of transparency vs. opacity. The airlines keep finding creative ways to make fares more opaque. It's time for Kayak and the other sites, who carried the original banner of transparency, to ramp it up a notch.

Google Flights does this a little bit, and Hipmunk has tried with its "Agony" ranking, but I think it's time these sites regained their transparency lead and introduced things such as:

--A drill-down into the exact fare being purchased. Exact seat pitch, exact seat width (differs for exit rows and bulkheads, for instance), rating of the seat model being used, exact A/V/wifi options offered and whether included or not.

--Careful, precise listings of whether carry-ons and personal items incur a charge, along with water, soft drinks, etc.

--Perhaps an average rating of the exact seat from collated sources like SeatGuru, SeatExpert, and others.

This'll take a new level of big data from the advocates of transparency, but it's doable with today's technology.

Meanwhile, the airlines are counting on inertia and laziness from the transparent sites and are doing everything they can to make the true cost of travel difficult for most travelers to figure out.

aCavalierInCoach

What do you mean "worst would be"? That is the status quo.

escapefromphl

I think they view people who have bought these cheapo tickets as a captive market and will definitely be hawking all the regular items. That's how the LCC's make money so it wouldn't make sense for UA not to offer upgrades as well.

aCavalierInCoach

I would love to see the outcry from the airlines (especially NK and F9) if expedia, travelociy, google etc started publishing the "average fees paid" (based on public filing) directly next to the airfare. Would make for some fascinating new accounting ideas to hide the revenue.

channa

I love how they say 5% to 10% lower.

SFO-LAS is $29, LAX-ORD is $41.

We didn't see prices just 5-10% north of that before F9 and Spirit came to town.

Are they telling me they'll offer me a $41 ticket LAX-ORD with no perks or a $43-$45 ticket LAX-ORD with perks? I don't think so.

If you look at it historically, the "low fare" was $129 or so, and the ultra-LCC match fare is $41.

I think that's more in line with what we'll be looking at.

worldwidedreamer

Without elite benefits, I'll just book the lowest priced ticket. Does United really want this?

Kacee

No. They want you to pay up for a fare that comes with benefits. Which I suspect most of us here will do. I personally will not buy a non-upgradeable, non-changeable, no seat assignment, no E+ fare.

findark

I agree. Watching the way DL has marketed E fares as "basic economy", I actually think the legacies' strategy here might be to deliberately highlight all the drawbacks of these new fares in an attempt to make customers feel better about paying a small premium to stay off of LCCs. It also takes the pressure off to match an LCC fare with a "full service" fare of their own.

I definitely think it pays to look at the way Delta has rolled this out. Consider a route like MSP-FLL, which is hub-to-vacation spot for DL, and also a non-stop route served by NK. All of Delta's published E fares MSP-FLL are $10 cheaper than a normal fare on a half round trip basis, and they are actually using backwards differential faring to achieve this. Think like an /UPDI fare for premium cabin travel, but instead the cheap E fare is VEVQA0MN/[something chopped off on ITA] which books into E and requires both V and E space to book (and is discounted $10 from the underlying basis).

Meanwhile, NK is still underselling DL on that route by $25 each way, and the DL site pops up this giant, scary warning about E fares if you try to book one. I honestly think DL (and AA and UA if they follow) are going to be careful about this, and not jump in to try to force their customers further down towards the bottom. They know a lot of the customers they have left value what little is still available even in Y-.

Kacee

Where these fares will really sell is through the third-party websites (Expedia, etc.), where they will show up as cheapest. And which tend to draw the less savvy travelers who don't pay attention to anything except lowest fare.

exerda

And a lot of those pax aren't exactly potential lifelong elites; I'm sure UA is taking that into account w/r/t the poor experience.

TennisNoob

I believe it's an no because UA needs to make money someway. So they hope people will buy ups to First or buy up to E+. Since they are failing to sell E+ fully on a lot of my flights. It makes sense if UA either decreased the amount of E+ or find an way to get people in there.

But if they took out the elites from getting E+, than it will be really empty!
Especially when an 739 on DL has only 21 E+ seats vs UA having 42!

Plus UA is famous for copying DL.