Artpen100

"The lower-tier HVFs will simply be buying into F instead of thinking an upgrade might clear."

I haven't thought that for years. This will just give me more of an incentive to buy more international BF on UA versus another airline - if it gives me the GPUs, and assuming there is still enough R space available at booking, the only kind I look for, to use a few of them on a leg here or there to keep the cost down.

LASUA1K

Can't you still pass up the cheaper overnight, and have your boss approve the red flag flight?

RandomBaritone

There's a critical distinction though: buying a premium cabin seat is always discretionary, so UA may want to incentivize it.

By contrast, buying a Y or B fare generally represents a business or personal need for flexible or last-minute travel. UA may see no reason to incentivize those purchases further by providing additional PQM, even if the actual profitability of those transactions is greater.

exerda

Well, except in the very limited cases of contractual front cabin travel (e.g. the SAG). Those don't make up a ton of business, but they were important enough that UA ran 3-class birds on LAX-JFK for years, until the SAG stopped requiring 3-cabin F.


This is very true. People aren't buying Y/B without a strong business need, and certainly not in advance without one.


True to a degree, but that neglects the value of a customer you know you have vs. one you hope to have. And as you go on to point out, UA isn't the airline who can count on those full fare F tickets due to the quality of their product.


This is one strike against this being the first step toward a purely spend-based approach for status. I suspect spend will play a bigger role as the program evolves (probably with a dual-track program coming soon, with spend + miles *or* spend-only at a higher level as qualifications), but we have a program change which in fact doesn't reward the top economy fares any more than the old one did, yet rewards the generally-cheaper discount front cabin fares significantly more.

OTOH, something else to keep in mind is that Y/B fares are in most cases fully changeable and refundable, which lowers the actual revenue slightly as pax will inevitably change and cancel them with no incremental income to UA and in fact some potential for lost income due to inventory spoilage. Discount F fares still have $200 change fees domestically and $300 internationally, aren't refundable, etc., so if someone cancels or changes, UA pockets that incremental revenue.

FrenchBullies1975

Sigh. I frequently buy M fares because they're allowable under my company policy, are often immediately upgraded as a 1K. Confoundingly, they're also sometimes more expensive than discount business fares. Such a bummer that we can't benefit from this.

CopperSteve

Would rather see the 75k FF mileage cap eliminated, or raised at the very least.

rankourabu

No, Y,B and M should be left alone - they are economy fares, and I bet you UA knows exactly how many OPM flyers are forced to buy those fares vs business fares. They already have a mechanism for rewarding Y OPM flyers in RDMs.

Lets leave high status earnings to those who actually buy the premium cabins, not upgrade into it.

RandomBaritone

It's definitely a bummer to learn you're not the target audience of a promotion or initiative such as this. UA must believe they're already capturing sufficient revenue from those buying M fares.

P.S. Love your screen name -- I also have a Frenchie.

StringerBellBivDeVoe

That's pretty much where I land on the whole thing. They are a business, and they have calculated that it makes sense for them to entice/court those spending the big money over us plebs.

In the end, I still think they should just drop all the pretenses of the MP program, status, etc. and just start handing out perks based on money spent because at this point MP is NOT about being a frequent flyer anymore.

dulcamara

I've been buying up to P from lowest Y fares from my own pocked when the fares are low enough. This change will help me get to 1K for 2017. I have two P-class RDU-HKG trips already booked. I'm happy.

I'm less happy with my zero luck trying to confirm travel to NRT and FRA over 8 months out. It's never been this hard for me before.

halls120

Agree 100%. At the beginning of 2015, I started my gradual withdrawal from 1K. I used my GPUs early to confirm upgrades at purchase, and during the remainder of the bought discount F for personal travel. Since UA has lost many of the GSA city pair contracts for my business travel, I spent (and will next year) far more time on AA - where my UG rate was happily high.

I look forward to crossing 1MM next year, but my days of doing over 100000 miles a year are thankfully coming to a close.

exerda

Speaking of being hard to give UA money, I was trying to upfare a POS-IAH leg. The Web site offers it to me in P, for $160 more than my E fare, but then errors out after payment. Calling res, they say it's only available in D for $770 and just to stick out the waitlist. Web Support says they can't offer the P fare because I already have IAH-IAD cleared into R via instrument ().

So far, no one has figured out how to take my $160 (I haven't even gotten far enough to ask for a waiver of the $200 change fee ).

This is common once you have an instrument waitlisted IME; the Web site has major issues offering you an upfare. Why is it hard to give UA money?

hirohito888

Exactly, Y/B fares are economy fares with added flexibility and the ability to exchange/refund, which doesn't equate to upgrade or premium. The new PQM is the status earning mechanism for premium cabin purchases.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

The bartender at the finest-bar-between-passenger-drop-off-and-the-terminal-doors-in-the-world will take your money at POS (also my vote for best airport code). Mighty fine beer drinking out there.

halls120

Excellent question. Earlier this year I was on a US-operated AA flight that I wanted to upgrade using $$. Couldn't do it on line of course, so I called the Plat line. They tried to take my money over the phone, and eventually told me I would have to do it at the airport, which I did.

It seems that UA isn't the only airline that makes it hard.