iahphx

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever actually seen any statement from UA stating that the companions of Mileage Plus Premier members are entitled to bring a free regular carry-on when they're ticketed in Basic Economy?

That seems to be the understanding, but I see that some pax (UA credit cardholdrers) have been hassled about their baggage rights, and I'd like to have a written policy I can point to. Thanks.

jsloan

It's in the policy:

flyerbaby19

That doesn't sound right to me. Never had an issue checking in for a flight >24 hours when it was just a connection.

HkCaGu

This was domestic to Canada, and we have had plenty of D-to-I and D-to-Guam and could never obtain E+ as Silver until that particular segment's T-24. You can check in for all segments but not obtain E+, yet.

TomMM

You are not getting upgraded on a BE fare no matter how full FC is.

DELee

Or empty FC is.

*REMINDER* : BE = no upgrades.

David

nycityny

That was his point. He was stating all the things he didn't forgo by purchasing BE, including FC seating since it was full anyway.

zartemis

And in the basic economy faq page it's even more explicit about the credit cards:
That's the 'written policy' I had the gate agents read on my iPad but it didn't convince them.

diburning

That "if space permits" part probably gives GAs a little leeway to make things up as they go...

zartemis

My understanding is that's always true for all carry-ons of all passengers, though. And if any allowed carry-on is involuntarily checked, then isn't it usually done for free?

In our case, they wanted us to pay to check the carry-ons in advance of loading. If they said there was no room and required us to check it for free we would have done so (and then wondered how they choose; but I would have given in immediately). The flight was close to full, but not full. We were in E+ and there were empty seats near us. We boarded early (group 2) so do not know if some people had their carry-ons involuntarily checked for space reasons.

Also, they did not rely on the 'space permits' clause to deny me, they just said it didn't apply to me and could not explain why other than repeating: "basic economy doesn't get a carry-on, there are no exceptions". And even when I'd point out my boarding group 2, they'd shrug and say "you get to keep your boarding priority but you still don't get a carry-on".

ESL issue? Maybe: in the other paragraph posted by jsloan (I pointed out that paragraph specifically to them and watched them both read it) they used the initial phrase from it: "you're not allowed a full-sized carry-on bag" to try to prove to me I was wrong, stopping at 'unless'. I said "i'm covered under the 'unless' conditions" and they'd then switch to repeating their 'no exceptions' claim as if somehow 'unless' wasn't a means of listing exceptions.

iahphx

Thanks. That page is different from another UA webpage I was looking at. It looks crystal clear to me, and something a gate agent should certainly "believe."

You're missing my point. Had I not bought a BE fare, and had paid the extra $40 per person, I also would not have gotten an upgrade because all the FC seats would have been allocated to other pax (there were actually only 5 upgrades out of 20 FC seats, so you weren't going to get one of those seats without some sort of upgrade instrument, even as a 1K). So all I've lost by saving the money is extra legroom and a 5-minute deplaning delay. As I said, those benefits are not worth $120 for 3 pax, at least to me.

jsloan

Yes. The "space available" clause is there to limit the complaints when they're forced to gate check a bag due to the bins being full or when there's a leg on a regional jet. There would be no charge for that. These particular gate agents had clearly gone rogue; this wasn't a case of falling into a loophole in UA's policy.

Wooglin

I had the exact opposite experience as a Silver. With Domestic, US-CAN and US-MEX connecting flights, getting E+ on the connection was available at OLCI @T-24 for the first flight.

It's bad luck you didn't, but I​​​​​​ don't know how BE would have changed that. BE pax don't get seat assignments until the gate, I thought?

HkCaGu

It's been mentioned elsewhere that UA has turned blue seats white for non-BE non-Premier customers when they check in in order to prevent BE customers from being "forced" to take E+ seats. Non-Premiers taking E+ seats at T-24 or OLCI is hurting Silvers.

emcampbe

this is im reference to the post about a flight to Canada, though, right. Canada flights still don't offer BE, so doubt this is happening on Canada flights.