sbm12

OpUps exist to solve this problem. The company can always fill the seats if it wants to, overselling the back and pushing people forward by whatever (published or not) standards it wants to use.

lhrsfo

The solution is very simple. Anyone called lhrsfo gets an upgrade as first priority. After that, try to maximize revenue. Anyone who says different clearly doesn't understand.

mahasamatman

If nobody's buying F, it shouldn't exist. European airlines figured it out a while ago with a reconfigurable cabin.

JBord

Sure, but that's just a CPU, with 2 differences: it works on international flights and it's less transparent.

If a CPU gets UA to the same spot, why wouldn't they take advantage of the opportunity to use it as a (basically) no-cost benefit? That's good business.

It's not that nobody buys F. Even on those short connector flights, some F seats are sold because they are part of a PNR with multiple segments. The point is that if they can't monetize those seats on some flights, but they can monetize Y, they shouldn't leave those seats empty.

So call it CPU or OPUP, the name is meaningless, except that calling it a CPU is an easy way to advertise it as an elite benefit.

CPU's are probably here until there's another market shift. It makes no sense to eliminate unpaid upgrades or go back to the old 500 e-cert system, where they won't get used on many flights. Now, if they want to allow people to buy additional RPU's, I could see that happening. But in essence, the P fares and cheap buy ups are making that unnecessary.

sbm12

Right. But it solves your red herring problem of not being able to sell more seats. :-:

If there are no published rules on how it happens then you win with "surprise & delight" except that so many are accustomed to the upgrades that they'd freak out. That said, the waning frequencies of upgrades at all is helping to wean elites off that teat; maybe in a few years it would be possible to pull the upgrades completely and sell the seats better or OpUp the few unsold and move on.

Syzygies

I'd like there to always be fares allowing the immediate application of RPU or GPU upgrades. Right now, this is called "just buy first" which values my certs at $0, so I don't plan to renew my 1K status. If there was a value > $0 to my certs, that United and I could both see, then at least I could make a business decision. Make me upgrade offers that include my turning in a cert, and don't insult me by not counting the money toward PQDs.

United has trained me to spend far more than the minimum, and enjoy beds some of the time. They're about to waste the benefits of this conditioning, that took them years to apply. If anyone there understands financial instruments, they should be able to manage and smooth out my upgrade risk for me, without losing money. Instead, it feels like their business model is to restrict the flow of information and hope that I make bad decisions; this can't be a winning strategy in the long run.

In the near future, the current landscape of agents that represent corporate interests (self-driving cars takes you to promoted coffee shops, United's web site controls how little you can figure out about flights) will be replaced by artificial intelligence agents that represent individuals. This will be a sea change on the order of a new Google. If Tesla or others refuse to take direction from our agents, we'll buy a different brand and they will perish. I'm looking forward to the ruckus when United fails to adapt but their competitors adapt. Or they will adapt, and there will be a conversation with each of us, "Here's my money, what can you do for me?" that is now reserved for their largest customers.

JBord

I don't know why it's a red herring, it's just a fact.

I agree with you that op ups solves the problem, but why not call the op up a "CPU" and market it as a benefit? My whole argument in this thread is that the current system is fine, if it just works the way it's written.

But a return to the 500 mile e-certs is silly. With the current fleet, UA would be doing 5-6 op ups on every UX flight. They made sense back in the day. IIRC, you got a couple for every 10k miles you flew, or you could purchase them right?

In today's world of monetizing F, you would just end up with a bunch of people complaining how useless they are because they never clear. At least with CPU's, there's no risk of losing them, and you haven't paid for them. We see that now with RPUs and GPUs.

Panam Clipper

This makes as much sense as most of the other posts. But in almost fifty posts nobody has mentioned what priority should be given to no revs...c'mon guys

rowenb

Which is why CPUs exist.

Remember the context of my original comment - somebody upthread argued that CPUs shouldn't exist because people who want to fly in first should just buy first. And I was trying to point out that a major customer segment for United are corporate travelers who are prohibited by corporate policy from buying a first class ticket, even if they wanted to pay the difference in fare out of their own pocket book. CPUs help make that important class of customer feel loyal to United.

Seby12

EuroBusiness is such a joke. It might as well be sold as an economy only flight, yet the fares are double the economy price.
The only people who sit in EuroBusiness are:
1) Rich people who's private plane broke.
2) Upgraded people.
3) People continuing to European cities from a First/Business class TATL flight or vice versa.

The concept of a regional First class (with the exception of about 1/3 of Turkish Air's regional fleet) in Europe has unfortunately become a thing of the past.

Hopefully EuroBusiness never makes it to the US.

gayste

Bring back the pre-merger UA method. I don't know how it worked behind-the-scenes but it worked for me. I was silver at that time and got just as many upgrades as I do now as gold. AND I did not have to "split" my record with my husband just to get a chance at the upgrade. We got upgraded often, and when we did, most of the time we were seated together (without having to "bargain" for someone to switch). It all seemed to work so seamlessly.

Sorry, I guess I was just one of those “entitled” lowly elites.

Ram Trucks

Easy. I'd make it that anyone with over x amount of miles, or with X Credit Card is automatically upgraded even if they haven't flown in 10 Years. Would be great for churners!

sbm12

You forgot the people who are traveling for work and who get to fly in biz for such. I have a friend who lives in London and who commutes to Switzerland regularly for work. She flies biz all the time on that route. I think it is a waste but that's what her company pays for so that's what she does.

Also, not much in the way of upgrades within Europe, at least not in the context of CPUs like they are here.

No, it is not a fact. The airline can still sell all the seats on the plane, even without CPUs. It can oversell Y and OpUp into F. Saying that killing CPUs reduces the ability to sell more Y seats is 100% false.

LondonElite

Your categories 1 and 2 are completely wrong, and 3 is small beans when taken for European airlines as a whole.

Intra-Europe business class is very often not significantly more expensive than Y, and there are often attractive pricing offers. I just got off a short flight this morning where business was about £95 more than economy (return). That got me a meal, a free middle seat, and more than double the miles. The concept of upgrading (op/comp/cert) does not really exist in the category at all.

JBord

If you are thinking of the year prior to the merger finalizing, it was more or less the same system as now. We just didn't have all the cheap buy ups, as I recall. So you're arguing to keep what's in place now, but add capacity as it was 5-6 years ago.

If you are thinking of 2 or more years before the merger, I find it unbelievable that you got a lot of upgrades unless you were purchasing them. As a Premier Exec back then, I got the 500 mile certs if I flew over 10k miles in a quarter (unlikely for a Silver?), or I purchased them.

Yes, I understand they can oversell a flight, and I understand they can do OpUps to fill F. I was originally responding to another poster's opinion that CPU's should be eliminated.

My point was, and still is, that some form of "CPU" has to exist. Call them all OpUps if you wish, but everyone here still wants a process that prioritizes elites if there are 3 seats to fill in an OpUp process. And returning to the 500 mile cert system would fill some of those seats on longer flights, but we'd likely still need a process to fill seats on at least many of the short UX flights. I know I wouldn't use a cert on ORD-MSP for example.

And my response to you was that if they're going to have a prioritization process to do OpUps, why not call those OpUps "CPU's" and get credit for offering them as a benefit to elites?

I think you and I are saying the same thing -- eliminating CPU's requires UA to replace them with a similar system anyway, so the calls here to eliminate CPU's aren't really benefiting elites in any way, as some people seem to believe.