timfountain

This is an increasing annoyance, and it drives me crazy. Also it appears that GA's just dump non-revs, BG5's and standby's on a totally random basis. And this is a charitable view, the more cynical side says they do the following on purpose.... For instance, still seats in E-, but let's plop a standby into the first available middle E+ seat, between a 1K and a GS (happened earlier this week, GS is a friend), whilst behind me I can hear 2 people who lucked into E+ from BG5 and the plane went out with an empty seat between those 2 passengers. That just doesn't make any sense to me, and I see variations on this happening more and more often....

emcampbe

Not really like waiting until T-24. I agree folks might decline a paid offer if they think they might get the same thing for free. But chances are that someone will get it for free anyway, so would be better to give to *G or high-fare paying pax then a BE pax who, in many (but I know, not all) cases will just as well fly DL, AA, or even Spirit for their next trip if its $1 cheaper. And it wouldn't be 'well-known' because the offer will be variable based on specific loads, and how many people they need to put there. So one flight might not need anyone, while another could need to make the offer to, say, 20 people.

Well, the answer there would be to select seats before the gate (which, per reports, UA will typically allow non-elite companions on different PNRs to select a seat next to their gold+ companion). IME, and I realize this sucks for last minute IRROPS situations, but if you haven't selected a seat prior to being at the gate, then, well, probably should have done that earlier, and you get what you can get last minute.

For who?

My understanding based on the reports in the BE threads are that they have done this for elites in BE. I'm talking about others - non-elite pax paying the highest fares, or *G pax.

sexykitten7

Obviously I'm talking about non-elites since all UA elites (even Silver) get free E+ on day of dpt. And I did see a few reports of free E+ so I think it has been implemented (the quote is from August 2017 so I should hope so!).

WineCountryUA

Not if they are traveling on a BE ticket

chermorg

I can all but guarantee there will be news articles on this subject - "United stops giving basic economy seats with extra legroom, even if that's all that's left". The news and certain blogs on the web will misconstrue anything like this. Further, there'll be articles such as "United gives away Economy Plus at check-in to some people" with only a footnote saying "basic economy ineligible". Premier members already get access to free Economy Plus at the latest within T-24. I fail to see why others should be given the opportunity to buy seats that are theoretically the "Same Great United Economy Service" but have a couple inches extra legroom. If United goes the way of DL/AA and adds in some bonus service for E+ (ex: free booze or better snacks/meals) then I can see why they would not want to throw BE in with it, but as of now I don't see it as beneficial to give non-premiers free access to E+ at check in - no matter if it's 1 or 10+.

The other thing to consider is that some premiers book rows in E+ that are unlikely to have a middle seat filled for a reason - they want the middle seat open. If you start giving that seat free to people who haven't earned it in any way other than buying a flexible economy ticket, it devalues premier even more.

edit to make clearer: I don't think people should be given random benefits above and beyond what they earn, at least so long as economy plus is given as one of the few benefits of low level Premier status. I'd rather it be fully random who is assigned to E+ for free (with maybe some targeted offers for Y/B/M fares like AC does) than have non-premiers be getting it simply because they booked a high dollar ticket. You have to also remember that the bar for Premier Silver is pretty low - someone on a high dollar or flexible fare who isn't Premier either just started flying United or (more likely) picks the lowest cost ticket and isn't loyal to United either.

sexykitten7

Oh I see. Thought that was assumed (since the whole point is to keep BE people trapped in the back) but I will rephrase:

Currently all RE UA elites get blue seats
The problem is sometimes RE people fill up all the white seats and then BE pax get autofilled into blue seats
UA's current solution is to (occasionally?) offer free blue to seats to non-elite HVCs on full fare tickets
(Personally I think this program should be expanded but who knows the BE loads? It might only be 5 ppl / flight)
The presumed goal is to ensure that BE pax of any status are always seated in white seats (hopefully middles!) and never blue seats

Personally I thought BE was a catastrophically stupid idea from it's inception (well, even prior to) but if you want to punish customers, you better do it fairly!!!

LC757

This happens on a lot of leisure routes where a lot of pax buy BE tickets. Case in point, my EWR-LAS on a Saturday a few weeks ago had about a 40% load in economy up until T-24 hours, with about 8 total assigned seats in E+.

By the time of boarding, E- and E+ were almost completely full. I asked the guy sitting next to me, a seat that was empty up until a few hours before boarding, if he was BE. He was.

PushingTin

It is weird that it seems like UA over-promises and under-delivers for elites (CPU and RPUs come to mind) while for BE they have all kinds of warnings about how it will suck, and they end up under-promising and over-delivering. And actually the standard E- people are the ones that get really screwed- they paid to get a seat and for a percentage of the time it is worse than the BE seat someone gets.

sexykitten7

Well that is inexcusable! What in the heavens was United thinking? I honestly don't think I can take any more stupidity. I mean, what kind of airline are they running? Just plain madness! Why not let BE pax fly the plane!?! What a disgrace.