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Real Premium Economy is Coming [Update: UA studying "Real" Prem Y in domestic market]

Old Oct 29, 2018, 2:14 pm
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Last edit by: WineCountryUA
UA has started installing Premium Plus / Premium Economy seats in 772s and 773s. Other long haul aircraft will also be receiving these new seats.
For 77x it is a 2-4-2 (vs economy 3-4-3) with 3 rows - 24 seats
For 76x it is believe it will be 2-2-2 (vs 2-3-2) with 3 rows ( and maybe a partial row) - 22 seats
For 78x it is believed it will be 2-3-2 (vs 3-3-3) with 3 rows - 21 seats

UA has not yet started selling this new cabin but has restructured its fare class -- which appears to be in preparation of selling the new cabin (and removed 3-class F)

In the meantime, the Premium Plus cabin is being treated as an extension of E+ and those with E+ access can select the new seats.
In many cases UA is initially using an interim seat maps, such as https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-airlines-mileageplus/1926142-interim-772-seat-map-polaris-potentially-premium-economy-2018-a.html
Things start to firm up about 2 days prior but last minute changes can happen

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Real Premium Economy is Coming [Update: UA studying "Real" Prem Y in domestic market]

Old Sep 19, 2018, 2:15 pm
  #781  
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Originally Posted by fumje
Move non-GS to RN?

This is reading tea leaves, but using R for PE might suggest upgrades Y-J will not be allowed, but rather Y-W.
They'd still need a J upgrade category to put people into, unless you think they wouldn't allow P+->J upgrades either.

RN could work.
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Old Sep 19, 2018, 2:43 pm
  #782  
 
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Originally Posted by jsloan
I wonder if O and A will be revenue and R will be upgrades. Otherwise, they'll need two new fare classes -- one for upgrades into J and one for upgrades into P+.
It's possible that they won't have a separate booking class for upgrades into Premium Plus. They already have the ability to award miles, etc. based on the underlying fare (e.g. some of the buy-up offers), and it's possible that they may not feel compelled to manage inventory for upgrades to Premium Economy as a separate class of inventory from discount Premium Economy like they do with business class.
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Old Sep 19, 2018, 2:45 pm
  #783  
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Originally Posted by Sykes
It's possible that they won't have a separate booking class for upgrades into Premium Plus. They already have the ability to award miles, etc. based on the underlying fare class (e.g. some of the buy-up offers), and it's possible that they may not feel compelled to manage inventory for upgrades to Premium Economy as a separate class of inventory from discount Premium Economy like they do with business class.
That's an interesting thought. Hmm.
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Old Sep 19, 2018, 3:20 pm
  #784  
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Originally Posted by Sykes
Random tidbit that could have interesting implications: United's sales department is saying that the new Premium Economy booking classes are going to be O, A, and R. This is significantly different than Lufthansa (G, E, N) and ANA (G, E).
Very interesting.

I wonder if "domestic first" will also be rebranded as "Premium Plus" too to harmonize the brand across the carrier.

Current:
Polaris (international only)
First ("domestic" only)
PremiumPlus (international only)
Economy Plus (fleet-wide)
Economy (fleet-wide)


New:
Polaris - lie-flat, international long-haul top end product
PremiumPlus - recliner seat for "domestic" first and the new UA international P+ product
Economy Plus - standard Y seat, extra legroom
Economy - standard Y seat

(And yes, I called it "domestic" first even though this is the same product that flies to Canada, Mexico, Central America, etc.)
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Old Sep 19, 2018, 3:27 pm
  #785  
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An awful lot of changes for a small number of seats relative to UA's overall long-haul capacity.
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Old Sep 19, 2018, 5:22 pm
  #786  
 
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Originally Posted by J.Edward
Very interesting.

I wonder if "domestic first" will also be rebranded as "Premium Plus" too to harmonize the brand across the carrier.

Current:
Polaris (international only)
First ("domestic" only)
PremiumPlus (international only)
Economy Plus (fleet-wide)
Economy (fleet-wide)


New:
Polaris - lie-flat, international long-haul top end product
PremiumPlus - recliner seat for "domestic" first and the new UA international P+ product
Economy Plus - standard Y seat, extra legroom
Economy - standard Y seat

(And yes, I called it "domestic" first even though this is the same product that flies to Canada, Mexico, Central America, etc.)
Just my opinion, but not a fan of "premium plus". Why not just got with "premium" or perhaps "premier" class. As I write the latter, I suspect that might cause confusion, but Premium Plus makes me think of AA's big swing and a miss with "platinum pro" or Hyatt's misadventures with labeling us Globalists, Explorists, etc. I do like the idea of consistent branding and service standards between UA's premium economy service and UA's domestic first service though.
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Old Sep 19, 2018, 5:39 pm
  #787  
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Originally Posted by CHOPCHOP767
Why not just got with "premium" or perhaps "premier" class.
Because somebody in UA's marketing department believes that "Plus" is part of the branding. Economy+, Premium+. That's the reason; full stop.
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Old Sep 19, 2018, 6:22 pm
  #788  
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Originally Posted by CHOPCHOP767
Just my opinion, but not a fan of "premium plus". Why not just got with "premium" or perhaps "premier" class. As I write the latter, I suspect that might cause confusion, but Premium Plus makes me think of AA's big swing and a miss with "platinum pro" or Hyatt's misadventures with labeling us Globalists, Explorists, etc. I do like the idea of consistent branding and service standards between UA's premium economy service and UA's domestic first service though.
My guess is they're trying to get away from the now illogical naming of [international] business class being above [domestic] first. They dropped "business" in favor of Polaris, note the hard [ P ] and the premium economy branding will have two hard [ P ]'s in Premium Plus. Couple that with [ P ]-remier benefits and think of possibilities for alliteration: "Premier members partake in premium products: Polaris, Premium Plus, and Premium Economy provided they pay premium phares."

Seriously though my back-of-the-napking thinking is the new P+ seat will be comparable to the domestic F seat (excepting the leg rest) and if this "level" of product is simply rebranded as PremiumPlus fleet wide, it knocks out the awkward "first" nomenclature.

Originally Posted by jsloan
Because somebody in UA's marketing department believes that "Plus" is part of the branding. Economy+, Premium+. That's the reason; full stop.
Could be. "Plus" has been in the marketing DNA since the beginning of MileagePlus.
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Old Sep 19, 2018, 6:32 pm
  #789  
 
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Originally Posted by Sykes
Random tidbit that could have interesting implications: United's sales department is saying that the new Premium Economy booking classes are going to be O, A, and R. This is significantly different than Lufthansa (G, E, N) and ANA (G, E).

Possibly related is that ANA has started publishing R availability to Sabre (ordered in-between P and G). Sabre seems to be categorizing it as business class at the moment, but it's all 0'd out right now.

A makes a lot of sense, but it'll be interesting if using O and R implies any sort of policy change aside from a simple booking class realignment.
How will they deal with selling discounted First on LH codeshares if A is gone? Just not sell it anymore, or assign a different fare bucket?
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Old Sep 19, 2018, 6:50 pm
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UA thinks that its Premium economy is better than anyone's Premium economy. This is why PremiumPlus was chosen. Seriously, I would choose Economy double plus (E++) or Business lite..
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Old Sep 19, 2018, 7:11 pm
  #791  
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I really doubt "United First" as a cabin name is going anywhere. No impetus to downgrade the fanciness of the cabin name once it's established.

Originally Posted by mrt88
How will they deal with selling discounted First on LH codeshares if A is gone? Just not sell it anymore, or assign a different fare bucket?
Probably just stop selling it, although that's a good question. They could also just stop codesharing, or force you to call to book the native A inventory.
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Old Sep 19, 2018, 7:17 pm
  #792  
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I don't doubt Sykes has accurately passed along what was received, but have to wonder whether UA is really changing its fare classes so they will no longer match up with its key JV partners, LH and NH.
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Old Sep 19, 2018, 8:35 pm
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Originally Posted by Kacee
I don't doubt Sykes has accurately passed along what was received, but have to wonder whether UA is really changing its fare classes so they will no longer match up with its key JV partners, LH and NH.
That struck me as odd too--I actually wasn't sure I believed it was repeated two more times by someone high enough in the sales org that they would know. It's entirely possible that they were honestly mistaken, but it wasn't the case of someone just making something up.

I can see good reason for doing it, at least temporarily. By the time they launch, they'll have no tickets for United flights in those underlying fare classes (even O). Moving upgrades to a new fare class and revalidating the ticket is a quite a bit less heavy of a lift than switching to G, E, and N (which are all in very wide use right now). That's not to say that switching to an in-use fare class is impossible (as I mentioned, AA has done it), but it would probably be a pain.
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Old Oct 7, 2018, 2:43 pm
  #794  
 
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Hey ---
Any updates on an actual sales roll out date?

Cheers
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Old Oct 8, 2018, 12:45 pm
  #795  
 
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Originally Posted by J.Edward
Seriously though my back-of-the-napking thinking is the new P+ seat will be comparable to the domestic F seat (excepting the leg rest) and if this "level" of product is simply rebranded as PremiumPlus fleet wide, it knocks out the awkward "first" nomenclature.
.
There are two issues with this. (1) 99% of the public will have no idea what "premium plus" is. Confronted with buying that flight from their home in Florida to see the grandkids and offered "First Class" on DL/AA or "PremiumPlus" on United for the same price, the known name will often win out; (2) then UA would need to map PE flights to domestic F, which I don't think is what they are going to do, my guess is that they copy DL and map PE international flights to domestic E+ (DL does it to C+). If they are called the same name, UA will need to connect to domestic F, which will raise the price point, and make it look noncompetitive with OALs that don't do this.
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