dinoscool3

It will almost certainly be doable. Currently both AC and LH/OS can book each other's PE.

WineCountryUA

As has been noticed by many, UA has appeared to many a number of fare class changes 19-20 October 2018.

For now let's focus the discussion on the changes in https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...er-2018-a.html

Another area that may have changed recent, is regards to 3-class “F” seat assignments, for that discussion see 2 Class Flights with 3 Class Planes --- Who gets to sit in the 3-class F seats?

This thread on Premium Plus / Premium Economy can focus on the seat, pricing, routes, future service changes, when UA might start offering for sale, the handling of the transition until then, competitive issues, …..


WineCountryUA
UA coModerator

GoSh4rks

Does anybody know how the 77w seat assignments change if a PE aircraft is subbed in?

Kacee

Roll the dice. UA doesn't have any standard mapping of seat assignments when they swap aircraft. That's why they've been implementing interim seatmaps for certain aircraft.

rob_flies_ua

My exit row 39A got swapped to exit row 45A without me doing anythings (here's hoping it swaps back if they put a non-PE 77W back on my flight).

GoSh4rks

Huh? Exit row 45A? Are the new PE equipped planes numbered differently?

findark

Yes. Config behind PE is the same but row numbers are higher.

oopl

I'm guessing new standardized row numbers for all planes with PE?

jsloan

So, I don't know if it was a slip of the finger or what, but UA has published some PE fares. I see one published on NYC-HOU (not EWR-HOU). They appear to be using a differential fare table similar to what's being used for F.

Looking at November flights, I see a fare family:

• SAA2AFBN is a BE fare (books into N) at $184 + taxes and fees ($198.20 all-in)
• SAA2AFDN is a regular economy fare (books into S) at $214 + taxes and fees ($228.20 all-in)
• SAA2AFPN is a PE fare (books into B) at $303 + taxes and fees ($317.20 all-in)
• SAA2AFFN is a F* fare (books into Z) at $406 + taxes and fees ($420.20 all-in)

So, compared to regular economy, BE is -$30, PE is +$89, and F is +$192,

Next is a W fare family at $234/$264/$353/$456 base fares, keeping those route differentials exactly consistent.

They're not published in many markets -- the only other one I've found so far in a spot check is NYC-CHI -- so I'm not sure how much to read into this. I do think it gives some insight into what will happen on domestic legs of connecting PE flights; they'll probably book into B for the cheapest PE fares and Y for the most expensive ones. Note that those fare classes are instant-upgrade eligible.

* or J, if you prefer, in the new era where F is a retired fare class. But they're still published as domestic first class; "JUA" is an F fare that books into the J RBD.

Sykes

It's notable that these fares are branded as "Economy Plus", which presumably means fares pre-bundled with E+ ...



I hope that means that Economy Plus will be free for the B and Y booking classes in the future. I suspect it may mean the end of more traditional B fares as well.

jsloan

If they're going to give E+ for free to P+ customers on two-cabin planes -- and I agree from your screenshot that it's implied -- I can't imagine not doing so for people on other B/Y fares. Especially if they're going to keep these domestic fares around; I don't think you'd want to offer a $300 S-B/P+ fare that included free E+ alongside a $1500 B fare that didn't.

I suspect they'd keep the B fares around for the same thing they're currently used for -- last-minute purchases on nearly sold-out planes, and a baseline off of which they can afford to offer a steep corporate discount.

symphonicman

The advance purchase on the B fares Sykes's screen shows would help them segment from this last-minute corporate traffic. Someone who's more knowledgeable than me—do the first letters of those fare basis codes mean that inventory will also be required in L/T/S respectively (in this case)?

I am holding my breath on all of this—suspect PE is going to push huge changes in UA's faring structure and elite program.

Sykes

Y and B almost always mirror each other, so I suspect that if they were to eliminate most B fares they'd just use Y for that. Delta still publishes W, but I don't think that they're really ever used except for perhaps some weird edge cases. (I don't know if it is possible, absent an IT glitch, for a DL flight to be W1 Y0 to break fare differential pricing.)

Technically the dual inventory requirements are on another screen, but the first letter of the fare basis being different from the booking code usually means, absent a mistake, there are dual inventory requirements and that the inventory represented by the first letter of the fare basis would need to be available in addition to B. It's how the fare differential pricing that jsloan mentioned works.

jsloan

That could be. I imagine a DL flight could get into W1 Y0 if Y were oversold to the point that they only wanted to sell one additional seat and wanted to get a W price for it. I assume they'd publish a bare W fare for this purpose, like the bare F fares UA has that are intended to deal with J1 Y0.

Incidentally, I did a little further research -- you were correct that these P+ fares include E+ access. I went through the booking process on United.com, used advance search to pull up one of these fares (look for fare class B), selected a non-status passenger, and I was able to select any open E+ seat for free. (To double-check, I went back and selected a regular economy fare instead, then selected an E+ seat, and it incurred a charge).

Amusingly, I went back again and did a search for Y. There aren't currently any P+ fares on NYC-CHI that book into Y, so I got a true Y fare. And... I did not get free E+. So, while I hope that they will take your suggestion and give E+ on all Y/B fares, currently it's only available on the P+ fares.

findark

-P- fares currently have the following template. Seems like they need to fill it in..

Overall the free E+ entitlement is fascinating though.