IAH-OIL-TRASH

As long as it's "Wild Speculation", maybe we'll see UA transition to a bid for upgrade like NZ. Instead of instruments, UA will dole out varying amounts of "bid dollars" to Premiers ($100,000 to GS, $10,000 to 1Ks, $1000 to Plats, $100 to Golds, $10 to Silvers ). Miles used in bidding for upgrades would be assigned a cash value/mile.

This is bid display to upgrade from Premium Economy on a daytime flight (I'm actually not going to bid). I'm already in J for the return redeye - not taking a chance. The bidding probably maxes out at the lowest refundable Business fare (after adding the PE fare I already paid), but I'm not sure - in this case, I could've bought Business for $400 less than what I paid for PE plus the max bid amount. My maximum bid would be about $800 or I would be paying more than I could have originally...

Can you imagine UA having white seats (for a day)?

gpicur

We are experiencing the same shortage of *A Partner Award Inventories in Premium Cabins here in the Middle East. Heck, I'd do a jig to find Business Class seats from DMM to North America on LH at 180K each way. When I check for June, July and August there is absolutely ZERO Award Business Seats on LH and TK. You might find the odd Business Class seat on ET with a 29 hour layover in ADD or a connection on MS via CAI to JFK with a change of airports to EWR all at the bargin price of 180K points each way. I can swallow points deflation, but blocking all premium award seats is just unbearable.

Darlox

The bitter irony in this, for me anyhow, is that I've easily made the 1K requirements for years, on purchased J seats alone. Lots of travel to Asia... I still fly a mix of UA and DL domestically, and none of this has impacted my domestic Economy-cabin purchases.

So the weird thing is that I'm in this limbo position where I sort of _want_ to give UA my money for TPAC J, and they've made it almost impossible for me to do so. *A partner carriers are less expensive, and in some cases nicer, and I certainly can't turn in an expense report that's ~$1000 heavy "because I just wanted to fly United" -- especially when that's not even really true. (Except for a handful of routes, give me SQ or NH any day...)

Business 101 says always make it easy for people to give you money. This thread exists because of my puzzlement over the circumstance where UA seems to be doing everything it can to force both my purchased and award premium activity onto partners! *boggle*

FTLexMUC

simmang

Only thing is you don't want to make it too easy to give you money if you can get more money by pricing higher if there are people willing to pay.

bluedemon211

I think there are multiple things at work but 2 that impact me are 1) lifetime (BIS) miles and GS qualification. It is 100% known lifetime miles are exclusively on UA/UAX metal and 99.9% that GS qualification is based UA/UAX travel. As such, I am "motivated" to pay more (within reason) to move up the lifetime list and potentially get GS along the way. How much this plays into pricing I don't know, but it certainly plays a role for many of us.

drowelf

This reminds me of a statement from a documentary on the Concorde. Almost all the passengers had their fares purchased by Corporate Travel Depts or were celebrities who probably never saw the bills. At this time Concorde is losing money, so some VP decides to ask their customers what they thought (or where willing to pay) for travel on the Concorde. Turns out that fare was over 2x what they were currently charging, so they upped the fare and then boom, Concorde became profitable for period of time.

threeoh

I thought UA and LH coordinate fares and schedules on their TATL routes. Wouldn't the price differential come from inventory availability rather than fare difference? I.e. the UA flight is more expensive because it's at a more popular time, not because UA is filing higher fares?

Doppy

Also the number of 1Ks won't change as a result of the PQD change until 2/2020.

Aussienarelle

Delete

rankourabu

Just because you are seeing the prices more expensive than partners - doesnt mean United sells at that price to everyone - discounted corporate contracts will pay a fraction of the listed price.

ummm.. the old United used to "starnet block" partners - and luckily for all of us, this practice was discontinued after the merger. Dont forget you couldnt even book partner awards online until the CO interface was adopted. Continental had great award availability, both on their own metal and on premium partners like Virgin and Emirates.

dilanesp

Yep.

Also, it is worth remembering that international long haul upgrades are extremely valuable. People pay a lot of money for them, and the pricing of Standard Awards reflects that.

So I suspect that the goal of many carriers is to give out only the minimum number of Ssver or instrument upgrades necessary to maintain FF goodwill, and to sell the rest either as Standard Awards or for cash.

Different airlines may have different waya of getting to that endpoint. But that is the endpoint.

manstein58

Precisely

findark

Yes. All of the JV partners (including AC, LH, and NH) have exactly the same fares in markets where the JV applies. Differences in individual flight prices are due to inventory, which is a load-based per-flight decision by UA RM to charge more for that flight. There's no conspiracy to "not compete anymore" and charge more across the board.

If you want to qualify for UA status you can always fly any JV partner on 016 stock (except NZ ) and get the best of both worlds (except GS).

FTLexMUC