Now now it gets more interesting. Because you’re flying a hub-hub route and not with UA. So if you’re so price sensitive and not taking up a seat on a route on which UA can easily fill with those paying higher fares, I’m even more confused why they should be offering a bigger incentive for you to fly UA on this route. These are going to be UAs busiest flights. Why incentivize a flyer to UA from. NK, F9, etc, on a hub-hub like this when they can likely be earning a higher fare from a hub captive on either end, a flyer connecting to a lucrative international flight, etc. there’s simply no point since their likely to fill the seat with a higher paying customer.

What negative PR fallout? Are we still trying to go back to the Dao incident?

Ive heard of many negative PR stories on multiple carriers, specifically the US ones. Both major and ULCC. UA has had its fair share, sure. But DL or AA aren’t doing much better in that category these days. There was a riot (or pretty close to it) in Florida (was it FLL?) when Spirit cancelled a bunch of flights and didn’t help their pax at all. Have you ever heard of what happens then on a ULCC? Trust me, they’re not booking you on another carrier - and they don’t have extra planes to bring in - you’re at their mercy of how many days it takes them to get you in their next available seat - could be days - especially if it’s a route that isn’t even daily.

Quite honestly, I’d rather be on UA as a BE pax then on F9, NK, etc.

this. Despite the fact that I would never fly Spirit, Allegiant or Frontier, etc., because I don’t think it’s worth it, personally, I respect that they have been able to bring in essentially a new class of travelers, offer flights to smaller places the majors won’t nexessarily go, and be profitible doing it. I do feel bad for the pax though who don’t realize how tight the pitch is, that they’ll have to pay for a glass of water or to be guaranteed a seat next to their companion, or the mess that they’ll be in if a plane goes MX, or if there happens to be a thunderstorm that day. At least BE isn’t as bad in many of those respects, even if it means there’s no full size carry on.

probabyl almost everyone is a price shopper, to some extent. But there are different variances.

I value my UA status, for example, and traveling with a family, I value those benefits as well as the relatively large schedule options UA has. So I’m still willing to pay more for UA than other carriers, particularly the ULCCs mentioned, and even than other legacies (traveling with two adults and two kids mean we need 1-2 bags, so every ticket on a carrier that I don’t have status on is automatically $50-$100 more round trip). I want a decent legroom (sorry...28 inches won’t do), I want to know that I can sit with my family, and I want to know that there’s more than one flight a day because of something goes wrong (and it does...not always, but it does), I want to know that there are backup options if necessary. If you don’t want/need those things, that’s great...ULCCs May very well be a better option. For me, it’s not.

maybe on some hub to hubs and peak time business city pairs. I doubt it’s that way on the average flight. I’d guess there are many flights where the majority of the cabin doesn’t even have a frequent flyer account, much less status.

there are also plenty of folks who book solely based on price, and either fly different airlines each time because A is cheaper this time, and B is cheaper last time. I’d guess most of these folks that are the most price sensitive aren’t actually paying much attention to expiring mileage (or that even Carr about it at all). Maybe they’ll have an account, or maybe not.

Im not suggesting that the ‘vast majority’of UA flyers aren’t MP members (or members of another partner), but I’d bet there are more than most on here would think.