UA Insider

Hi everyone,

A few of you have already noted, we are temporarily introducing a 3-cabin B777-200 on our premium service “p.s.” flights between New York/Newark (EWR) and both Los Angeles (LAX) and San Francisco (SFO). This change is effective March 29 through September 8, 2016 in both directions, on both EWR-LAX and EWR-SFO. All other flights in these markets are unaffected and will continue to be operated by 2-cabin aircraft.

We will sell these flights as 2-cabin flights to be consistent with other p.s. flights. In the Global First cabin, we will offering BusinessFirst onboard service and have adjusted first class inventory to zero. BusinessFirst customers will not be able to select seats in the Global First cabin. Instead, we will be proactively upgrading select customers into those seats in advance of departure, with our compliments, and will not collect any upgrade instruments or require additional miles/co-pay.

Thanks, and please let us know if you have any questions.

-UA Insider

PsiFighter37

This seems like it will require pretty active management to give these CPUs from J to GF - as UA will want to make sure it is able to sell all 48 seats (8 GF + 40 BF). Is it possible that these CPUs will default to the same methodology that applies to regular CPUs, or will this be more of the 'surprise and delight' kind of initiative?

milesmuncher

Thank you for the update. If we've already booked a GF award on one of these flights, will we be able to get a refund for the difference in mileage (since the service will be BF)?

wxguy

I'm guessing these birds come from the excess created by switching SYD flights from sUA 772 to sCO 789.

transportprof

And not from the end of flights to DXB?

Kacee

Mostly 772A's pulled off the TATL routes would be my bet.

EWR764

Domestic C is now catered the same as F.

RobOnLI

Question - on the domestic wide-body 3 class flights, who is eligible for "CPU" from J to F?

I was looking into the data for the 744 running SFO->ORD (for example) and noticed quite a few people on the Global First upgrade waitlist. These people are not on the flight standby list so they aren't non-revs. Who is eligible for a free upgrade to GF on a domestic wide-body? Anyone? Or are these all likely instrument supported upgrades as part of a larger itinerary (e.g. SFO-ORD-CDG)?

Thanks,
RM

jmanirish

Any elite who paid for J is eligible.

Kacee

And with the cheap UPDIs proliferating, that's probably 2/3 or more of the cabin.

jmanirish

Exactly, especially because UA loaded the widebodies but took at least 2 weeks to exclude them from most of the cheap UPDI fares. On the 744 SFO-ORD, you could purchase a P for ~$400 (same as the regular narrowbody) and A (Booking into first) could be had for ~$700. By the time it was corrected, the cheapest J was in Z for ~$800 and F was ~$1-2k (but the F cabin filled up quickly).

Using today as an example, Kacee's estimate was pretty spot on. 744 SFO-ORD, I count 35 Y>J upgrades and 9 J>F upgrades. Which means F was 75% upgraders (9/12) and J was 67% (35/52). However, before the J>F upgrades, it would've been 50% paid 50% upgrade (35-9).

goodeats21

Just to confirm the above posted information, when I purchased J (P fare) on a 777 IAD->LAX, my itinerary showed the CPU eligible. I went ahead and threw an RPU on it, but it still hasn't cleared.

It will be interesting to see if/when it ever does.

RobOnLI

Are you sure?

I look at tomorrow for example. UA 1570 is the 835am SFO-ORD.

F is booked full. 3 are cleared upgrades and only one name appears on the list (LOW/M).

J is booked to 45 out of 52 with 6 blocked (coach is probably overbooked). 30 of these are upgrades. The flight is currently checked in to 29. "LOW/M" is an upgrade to J.

Surely not all 29 of the check-ins are CPU customers. So why isn't the F waiting list longer? And why is LOW/M, who shows as cleared on the J list showing up as standby on the F list even though he's a revenue customer. I suppose it's technically possible there are two different "LOW/M" on the flight (one upgraded to business and one paid for business). But definitely the standby list for F would be longer with 29 business pax checked in.

I'm not losing sleep over this data. I'm just curious who really gets to show up on the F standby list.

Thanks!
-RM

mduell

Nonrevs can waitlist for multiple premium cabins.

jmanirish

Well a couple of thoughts. There are 30 names on the J CPU list which have cleared. So theoretically, all of the 29 check-ins could be Y>J CPUs. A few of the 29 checkins could also be paid J who are not elites (if you can/do always fly domestic F, there is not a big need to chase status, and therefore many just pick the best or cheapest airlines when needed). A few of the 29 checkins could also be elites on an award, without a Chase CC (and therefore also not eligible for an upgrade).

LOW/M is probably not a non-rev, because as you point out, he/she is already cleared into J. There are reports of buy-ups to F(or in this case J) which show was cleared upgrades. If it was actually treated as a buy up to J in the backend, then he/she would be CPU eligible for J>F.