CDSEA

I bring food with me on flights in domestic F all the time or I eat before/after.

On long haul international flights I'll often skip the meal in favor of sleeping if it leaves after 9 or 10.

There are few occasions when I eat the food on the airplane.

garykung

OP - I feel for you as it is a long flight. However - I still believe UA is doing an excellent job offering BoB instead of free meals.

Airline food, including BoB, is not particularly good. So whenever I can, I would rather eat in the airport instead. UA's BoB gives you a clear message - if you don't want to pay for BoB, then prepare your own food.

I believe an unhealthy McD meal is way much better than anything UA can possibly offer.

FlyerTalker70

Last I checked Hawaii is one of the 50 states in the US. The policy for food on UA is pretty consistent, no free food in Y for domestic flights within North America & Caribbean. Sure DL and AA offer free meals for certain passengers on certain routes but if anything that creates confusion with PAX. Would you rather know that you won't be served food on a plane or board the plane only to realize there's no free lunch? As others have pointed out there's always BOB along with simply pre-eating at the airport or purchasing food to take onto the aircraft.

Also do you really want a catered meal if you're flying out of DEN these days?

Safe Travels,

James

PACLipper

I once flew UA IAD-HNL a few years ago, and there was no pre-arrival meal. I have to admit I was famished after the 8th hour and was told the caterer had only loaded breakfast and the f/a's attitude was more or less, suck it up. No snacks, nothing. Mercifully, subsequent flights on this sector have been properly catered, but I suspect though perhaps rare, it does happen. I am on Delta One via MSP and ATL moving forward, but the tickets are much more expensive and it is not non-stop. Perhaps you get what you pay for?

Boraxo

Umm the problem is that is not always the case. Flights that depart after 8pm often have no food other than possibly snack boxes that run out halfway thru economy. And it is not possible to buy food at the airport if you are rushing to catch your flight after a day of meetings or maybe have a tight connection.

I personally do not care if UA charges for food but I do care if they decide not to sell food because some bozo in Chicago does not understand how people travel.

FlyerTalker70

Agreed on that point - food should always be made available to purchase, especially on these long haul domestic flights. It doesn't surprise me that UA doesn't cater flights properly given the fiasco in DEN. I can also understand why travellers wouldn't feel inclined to shove as much food in their mouth before taking a long (and likely bumpy) Pacific flight. What always surprised me about UA is they don't sell first class meals to coach. Having travelled on other carriers (i.e. Via Rail in Canada) that's always been an option!

Safe Travels,

James

Boraxo

I was surprised how good the food was on Amtrak long distance trains. I am sure Canada is even better. But to be fair Amtrak has a full kitchen & dining car...

gradsflyer

Well actually you're not entirely correct on this. E+ now gets free food and drinks on premium transcon routes, which are significantly shorter in time and distance than anything other than west coast flights to Hawaii, and as others have stated in their replies to my original post Hawaii routes are even longer than some TATL routes so it still does't make a whole lot of sense.

@ garykung, Regardless, I do always do BoB, and also have to disagree with you that while not fantastic, UAs BoB food is actually pretty decent and better than DL or AA. I even regularly see people in J and F request BoB items like the cheeseburger because they like them better than any of the other options being offered up front. I don't think BoB is a bad option, but especially as an elite on flights this long it just seems ridiculous to have to pay extra to eat.

garykung

I stand by my opinion. At the mean time, if you have every seen me from a HNL flight, you are welcome to get my complementary BoB (Note - I always fly to HNL and I let others to get my complementary BoB if they choose to do so.)

emcampbe

garykung

The route is incidental to the benefit.

Your argument, IIRC, has no difference than why elites can upgrade simply using RPUs or even with CPU for free, while the rest have to sit in the back.

RNE

Agreed. Even people with perfectly good iPhones rented tablets. I gather the latter's larger screen size was the appeal. I was fine with my dinky iPhone 6s.

My recent experience was that the WiFi "failed" by granting me internet access I didn't pay for. ^

carzaddict

Will be flying from EWR to HNL this weekend (if it doesnt get delayed or cancelled due to snow)....and I noticed that it said "meals for purchase". I understand its a domestic flight....but its also 11 hours....so do they not serve meals?

Hopefully I wont have to find out the hard way, I've used my GPU upgrade, and I'm 1K...so i hope it comes through (showing 7 available seats so far).

dilanesp

Yep. Bring a credit card or pack some food

764toHI

EWR-HNL is buy-on-board with no complimentary meals in Y. You will get the complimentary stroopwafel with an option to buy breakfast items after takeoff, and then another BoB service with lunch items about 6 hours after takeoff (roughly just after leaving the CA/OR coast). I'm not 1K so I don't know if you'll get a complimentary BoB item for both meal services but I'm assuming you should get at least one free item off the menu.