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Wild speculation on UA's new strategy for Polaris, Upgrades and Award Space

Wild speculation on UA's new strategy for Polaris, Upgrades and Award Space

Old Feb 7, 2019, 1:12 pm
  #31  
 
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Originally Posted by FTLexMUC
Is leaving at 740pm that much better than 6pm that you’re willing to take the (imho) inferior product - at least until Polaris sears get rolled out - and pay significantly more? I doubt it.
I imagine that for many people who work 9-5, the 7:40pm is highly preferable to the 6:00pm, regardless of carrier.
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Old Feb 7, 2019, 2:12 pm
  #32  
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Originally Posted by 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.
While I take your point, from a business perspective, it's hard to see the current arrangement satisfying that "minimum number ... necessary to maintain FF goodwill". Which will someday, again, be important (even if it isn't today) when the market starts tightening up again, as it inevitably will.

Look at it this way... A round-trip to Asia for two people, in J. Typical vacation fodder, which your average traveling couple might go on once every few years. To redeem that at current Standard levels, that is 700,000 points.

UA changed the earning model such that there's not many easy ways to "churn" that kind of balance. If you're a general member, you'd have to spend $140,000 USD on United to earn enough RDMs for that award. Even 1Ks would have to spend $63,600 USD, or more than 4x the annual 1K spend threshold.

At the same time, it's not uncommon to find J tickets for somewhere in the $3000 neighborhood these days, if you're flexible, which would also be the typical flexibility that someone going on vacation would accommodate. So, that pricing still offers the "extremely valuable" J ticket at considerably less than $0.01 per point, on redemption.

Ironically, while flying partner metal on a partner ticket would not do anything to earn you status, a current 1K buying that $3k ticket on NH, for say SEA-NRT-SIN would net about 48,400 MP points (3x distance, inc'l class of service and elite bonuses), while buying it on 016 stock would only net 33,000. So the earnings side of the equation is out of whack as well. Literally everything about the current structure is tilted, seemingly, to say "don't fly United if you're not on a deeply-discounted corporate contract", aside from any psychological factors that may be at play.

I'm not discounting UA's desire to make money. Make hay while the sun is shining, and if they can get away with the current premium, great! But, if nothing else, it seems somewhat short-sighted in light of the fact that corporate contracts have a tendency to evaporate overnight when the market starts to dive. Driving your un-managed traffic away on both the earning and redeeming side of the equation seems like poor planning, sooner or later... Flyertalkers may be a non-standard sampling of the market, but in this case, if the "experts" can't figure out a way to make the system work, which way are the common novices going to vote??
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Old Feb 7, 2019, 2:13 pm
  #33  
 
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A theory

I've noticed this too. One wonders if they have basically given up and ripped up the supply/demand curve math. It might make sense to charge a fortune and go for the lazy. Or maybe because Government workers must fly a US carrier, their planes are full of government workers flying to Asia planning to renegotiate the price the airline tickets that get sold to cheap Americans (lol).
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Old Feb 7, 2019, 2:20 pm
  #34  
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When I worked for Uncle Sam, Government workers re not permitted to fly business class except for travel that exceeds 14 hours. So they are not filling the business class cabins.
There is no incentive for UA to make additional saver award space available so long as DL and AA offer even worse options. Most first world mileage programs Eg BA, LH are no better. AS is probably the outlier but isn’t strong enough to steal UA international customers esp after gutting the popular VX flights.
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Old Feb 7, 2019, 2:42 pm
  #35  
 
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Originally Posted by Darlox
While I take your point, from a business perspective, it's hard to see the current arrangement satisfying that "minimum number ... necessary to maintain FF goodwill". Which will someday, again, be important (even if it isn't today) when the market starts tightening up again, as it inevitably will.

Look at it this way... A round-trip to Asia for two people, in J. Typical vacation fodder, which your average traveling couple might go on once every few years. To redeem that at current Standard levels, that is 700,000 points.

UA changed the earning model such that there's not many easy ways to "churn" that kind of balance. If you're a general member, you'd have to spend $140,000 USD on United to earn enough RDMs for that award. Even 1Ks would have to spend $63,600 USD, or more than 4x the annual 1K spend threshold.

At the same time, it's not uncommon to find J tickets for somewhere in the $3000 neighborhood these days, if you're flexible, which would also be the typical flexibility that someone going on vacation would accommodate. So, that pricing still offers the "extremely valuable" J ticket at considerably less than $0.01 per point, on redemption.

Ironically, while flying partner metal on a partner ticket would not do anything to earn you status, a current 1K buying that $3k ticket on NH, for say SEA-NRT-SIN would net about 48,400 MP points (3x distance, inc'l class of service and elite bonuses), while buying it on 016 stock would only net 33,000. So the earnings side of the equation is out of whack as well. Literally everything about the current structure is tilted, seemingly, to say "don't fly United if you're not on a deeply-discounted corporate contract", aside from any psychological factors that may be at play.

I'm not discounting UA's desire to make money. Make hay while the sun is shining, and if they can get away with the current premium, great! But, if nothing else, it seems somewhat short-sighted in light of the fact that corporate contracts have a tendency to evaporate overnight when the market starts to dive. Driving your un-managed traffic away on both the earning and redeeming side of the equation seems like poor planning, sooner or later... Flyertalkers may be a non-standard sampling of the market, but in this case, if the "experts" can't figure out a way to make the system work, which way are the common novices going to vote??
Another way of putting your point is that they basically don't want to give out an international upgrade to a casual flyer. They don't mind giving them out to their highest volume customers occasionally, and the high price of Standard Awards reflects that.

I don't, by the way, disagree that the number of Saver upgrades might now be less than needed to maintain FF goodwill. That's certainly possible. But my post describes the playing field we are playing on.
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Old Feb 7, 2019, 2:42 pm
  #36  
 
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Originally Posted by Boraxo
...Government workers re not permitted to fly business class except for travel that exceeds 14 hours.
Curious. How was "travel" defined?
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Old Feb 7, 2019, 3:13 pm
  #37  
 
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Originally Posted by narvik
Curious. How was "travel" defined?
It is very easy to get the policies they are usually publicly available:

Premium-class other than first-class airline accommodations may be authorized when travel is between authorized origin and destination points, and either the origin or destination point is outside the continental United States (CONUS), and the scheduled flight time (not including domestic layover time nor actual domestic segment(s) flying time) is in excess of 14 hours. Credit shall be given to time on the ground for a connecting flight provided the layover’s locale is OCONUS. Travel should be urgent because of the nature of the task and not driven by an employee’s personal reasons.
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Old Feb 7, 2019, 3:17 pm
  #38  
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Originally Posted by dilanesp
Another way of putting your point is that they basically don't want to give out an international upgrade to a casual flyer. They don't mind giving them out to their highest volume customers occasionally, and the high price of Standard Awards reflects that.

I don't, by the way, disagree that the number of Saver upgrades might now be less than needed to maintain FF goodwill. That's certainly possible. But my post describes the playing field we are playing on.
Even in the case of the highest-value flyers, I'm thinking we may have had a nomenclature shift here. Is MP a "Loyalty Program" or a "Rewards Program"?? If it's a "rewards program", then well... we are where we are. It's just another in a giant market of marketing scams with terrible "rewards".

But if it's a "loyalty program", then it's seriously out of whack. The purpose of "loyalty" was to incentivize people to choose UA over other carriers, with the promise of receiving the benefits of that loyalty down the road. FF programs started out as, and still ostensibly are (at least on the major legacy carriers) loyalty programs. Hence my confusion about a loyalty program that seems to more strongly incentivize using other carriers!!! Maybe I'm just behind the times... loyalty is dead, long live the transactional customer!!
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Old Feb 7, 2019, 3:34 pm
  #39  
 
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Originally Posted by MD/DC Flyer
It is very easy to get the policies they are usually publicly available:
Bear in mind that many organizations exercise their discretion to have the traveler fly out a day or even two early to recover from their coach flight rather than pay for a premium fare.
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Old Feb 8, 2019, 5:57 am
  #40  
 
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Originally Posted by ExplorerWannabe
Bear in mind that many organizations exercise their discretion to have the traveler fly out a day or even two early to recover from their coach flight rather than pay for a premium fare.
I'm well aware of that. And you also can break the travel to avoid that 14 hours clause. However, I was answering a specific question.
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Old Feb 8, 2019, 6:54 am
  #41  
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Originally Posted by ExplorerWannabe
Bear in mind that many organizations exercise their discretion to have the traveler fly out a day or even two early to recover from their coach flight rather than pay for a premium fare.
That is the rule in many USG departments and agencies - you're flying SFO-SIN? Leave a day earlier and and come back to work a day later.
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Old Feb 8, 2019, 10:55 am
  #42  
 
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Originally Posted by 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,...
When would the bid's clear? If it is anytime after 24hrs after booking, then that would mean no more advanced upgrades. Most of my business travel has transitioned to domestic only which I like. I typically use GPUs on leisure travel (since a lot of flexibility is required). If I cannot get upgraded at booking, I would likely decide to cancel the trip entirely as using up my GPU is one of the reasons for the trip in the first place.
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Old Feb 8, 2019, 11:43 am
  #43  
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Interesting discussion in this thread!

Originally Posted by dilanesp
Is it possible that there is a significant preference for some consumers to fly UA internationally as opposed to partners, especially after the introduction of Polaris?
New Polaris seats and Polaris Lounges (at least stateside hubs) might add some draw.

Originally Posted by 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?
Fare differences in JV are due to IM-driven booking class availability.
I've seen P0 inventory weeks out on wide-open flights, yet P never opened up and flights virtually sold out. Meanwhile, competitors sold seats at P-fare levels by the dozens, and were booked by my 1K friends (of small - medium size companies).

While we know, that Apple folks can take up half a business class cabin, it would be interesting to get an idea, what %-age of seats longhaul system-wide sell at heavy-discounted (40+%) fares.
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Old Feb 8, 2019, 12:02 pm
  #44  
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Originally Posted by cesco.g
Interesting discussion in this thread!

New Polaris seats and Polaris Lounges (at least stateside hubs) might add some draw.
.
Yeah, and here again... aside from the lack of Polaris lounges outside of UA hubs, there's no penalty to fly a *A partner. I've personally used the ORD lounge prior to swapping terminals for an LX flight ORD-ZRH. So if the lounges are a draw, there's still little/no incentive to not fly a partner, other than it's more _likely_ you're flying UA if you're at an airport with a Polaris lounge...

And I think the seats are a red herring, at least as far as un-managed travel is concerned. Don't get me wrong - I think they're great! But when your choice is anything-J, or UA-coach, anything-J is going to win every time!
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Old Feb 8, 2019, 12:08 pm
  #45  
 
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Originally Posted by Darlox
Yeah, and here again... aside from the lack of Polaris lounges outside of UA hubs, there's no penalty to fly a *A partner.
The penalty is for all airports except the origin of your long-haul flight.

FRA-EWR-SFO you can access lounge at EWR and SFO if FRA-EWR is UA but not if it's LH.
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