Baze

Well, to some people, $15 is a couple beers at their destination and that is more important than a couple carryons and picking their seat. A lot of people that fly don't have FF accounts so could care less about the miles either. Just saying, I would never buy a BE fare myself.

Aroeder

Over this past weekend I was traveling with a friend who had purchased a basic economy ticket on United.

We arrived at the Premier Check-in @ Sea-Tac about 5 minutes before boarding was about to commence so about 35 minutes before our flight time.

I understand that this cutting it entirely too close, but this was our situation and we know that is on us.

Neither of us were checking a bag.

Due to basic economy restrictions they would not print my friend a boarding pass even though we were not checking bags and could have still made the flight.

Proof that we could of made our flight***
I went through security and tried to get the GA to print my friends boarding pass with his ID at the gate and then return to TSA with his boarding pass. The door was not closed but they understandably would not issue a boarding pass without him present. I had to try anyways!

Why there is a time restriction on issuing a boarding pass when no bags are being check seems beyond me.

After exiting the secure side to go work out what we were going to do with my friend we had a great premier checkin agent (different from our original checkin agent that could not get him a boarding pass). She was able to re-route us on the "flat tire" rule. Even though it was an unpleasant red-eye departing 8 hours later to a connection the next morning we arrived at our final destination.

This ended up being a success after a mistake on our own part but it seems silly that we could not get a boarding pass for my friend when we were not checking bags.

Has anyone else run into this time restriction on United Basic Economy?

Has anyone else had success with the "flat tire" rule?


Thanks, Austin

villox

Was your friend trying to bring a carry on? Did he truly have only a "personal item", that was no larger than the United allowed dimensions of 9x10x17?

If you had a carryon, United was right to deny you a boarding pass.

eng3

Whether one could have made it is not relevant because there is a specific policy on checkin times.
The Minimum check-in time for flights from SEA with carry-on baggage only is 30min before departure.
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...s/default.aspx

If you truly attempted to obtain checkin at 35min (and not 29min), then you should have been able to get a boarding pass and you have a legitimate claim against UA. Otherwise YMMV depending on agent.


The issue with Basic Economy is that With Basic Economy, you'll only be able to check in for your flight through united.com or the United app if you indicate that you're checking a bag. If you begin check-in and do not indicate that you're checking a bag, you'll need to finish checking in for your flight at the airport. I don't know why they do this but I suppose it is one of the conveniences one gives up by booking Basic Economy. UA could do a better job explaining this though. That doesnt help anyways since if you had a bag, the cut-off is 45min but at least you'd have a BP.

mherdeg

There is no documented reason that at 35 minutes prior to flight departure, United should refuse to issue a boarding pass for a traveler at SEA.

United has no special rule regarding Basic Economy fares which makes this any different.

See https://www.united.com/web/en-US/con...s/default.aspx for UA's min connection times and also info in the contract of carriage.

If the flight was oversold and United caused it to no longer be oversold by refusing to issue a boarding pass, then maybe the friend was involuntarily denied boarding and might be owed compensation under DOT IDB rules. That's 4x of the one way fare up to $1350. It's impossible to know if that was the situation without asking UA or asking the DOT to investigate.

Otherwise if United just spontaneously decided not to let the passenger check in and cited a made-up rule the passenger is not automatically owed anything under DOT rules. The passenger is free to file a DOT complaint just to keep track of the bad behavior. The passenger is also certainly free to sue United in small-claims court for their damages (what were the costs associated with arriving at the destination much later?)

It is the view of some people that no United agent would ever refuse to issue a boarding pass before the check-in cutoff and that certainly an agent would never cite a nonexistent restriction of the 'basic economy' fare class in doing so. Some people who have that opinion might go on to say -- gosh, it sounds like we're not getting the whole story, your friend must be leaving some information out, I bet when we hear all the facts things will be different. I'll just leave this paragraph here to acknowledge that people have this opinion.

Note that some kinds of carriers DO have separate check-in cutoff times that depend on class of service (and perhaps fare class). For example, Eurostar Business Premier permits check in until 10 minutes before departure (vs. 30 or 45 minutes for other classes of service). United does not currently publish such a restriction for its basic economy fares.

steaminer

I don't think BE should have anything to do with whether or not a boarding pass could be issued - it should be completely based on time, regardless of the ticket type.

Wayside

If you aren't checking a bag they only allow airport check-in for BE so they can in fact verify you don't have a bag at the ticket counter. I could see people indicating they don't have a bag hoping to slip through the cracks. I think it's designed to reduce last minute work for checking bags, charging BE customers for it, at the gate.

CruiserCLE

Agree. I have seen a few flights recently with a (relatively) large BG5, most recently CLE-IAD and IAD-TPA, and from my glance of the line, no one had a second bag. I think it definitely reduces the chance that people can sneak a bag to the gate, only to cause a scene when they find out they have to pay two fees for it.

Does it create longer lines at the counter? Sure. But I rarely see check-in lines that are crazy long anymore (more and more mobile BP or printed at home), so I don't think it's going to overwhelm them by any means.

steaminer

Fortunately this only applies to customers that would have to pay the fee (e.g., premier and card holders can still check-in online)

N104UA

There is a time restriction because the agents need to remove non-checked in pax to clear pax without seat assignments and standbys, in addition you need to be on board 15 minutes prior to departure. Although occasionally you may make it through in 15 minutes it is highly unlikely. Check in time requirement is the same as when you have to be on board, so they can get the flight out on time.

Flat Tire rule is essentially that you got a flat tire on the way to the airport so they will rebook you, where they are technically not required to rebook you.

COSPILOT

Was in first class today, seatmate was a last minute arrival, and turned out to be a BE fare and was seated in first. Very nice lady, and she was shocked at her luck.

Coach was full fwiw, first left with I think two empty seats.

DELee

This is just wrong. You have GAs who have their hands full just to get flights out and the wrong folks on the wrong fare buckets are getting into F.

Sheesh.

David

COSPILOT

I kept looking to see if anyone was on the waitlist for first, nobody missed an upgrade in this case.

DELee

Understood. But, as others have suggested upthread, anyone who'd paid for a higher fare class should have been promoted to F before the BE flyer.

David

COSPILOT

I completely agree.

I also found it odd that 4 people were on the economy standby list, but none made it. For a very short domestic flight I assumed they would make every attempt possible to fill the airplane, but I was wrong.