findark

Just poor typing by whatever intern had the keyboard. It's been fixed as of this morning.

They changed the BE matches of refundable fares to be round-trip fares of the same price. This means that, for flights where only refundable fares are left:

(a) you can combine a BE outbound with a return in BE on that flight (for the same price as the non-combinable regular fare)
(b) if you search the flight alone, BE will show up as "not available" on the United site

1353513636

Just noticed BE fares popped up on LAX-SFO, UA is matching the price on WN, AA (not basic economy), DL (not basic economy), and VX with basic economy. I'm really not sure who's behind this pricing strategy but matching DL's non BE fares with BE fares doesn't seem like a winning strategy to me.

EDIT: In case it's not clear, the 4 airline options in this post were the same price on the route.

GBadger

Well this is interesting. Was just looking at fares between DEN and MSN. The cheapest Basic Economy fare, for one way on a round trip, was $403. Right next to it was a non-Basic economy fare for $185. Even more impressive was the second non-stop, where F was cheaper than BE...

Guess which one I booked .

spin88

This is what is going to kill them. Highly competitive market.

(1) People will not check and then will feel ripped off, especially when everything is the same price.

(2) they notice the prompts and think United is running a bate and switch, book another airline, and then think that United not only beats its customers, but tries to cheat them too.

This only ends badly. United keeps giving on-goals to its competitors.

haddon90

BE is on SNA-SFO...with AS pretty much matching them, guess who i am sending my business to?

BE is such a dumb concept. i will avoid UA at all costs because of BE.

televisor

Similar on SFO-SEA. I'm actually seeing better pricing on all of DL/AS/VX, and the difference only gets bigger when you add the BE surcharge.

minnyfly

1) You can't NOT check. Anyone buying a basic economy fare has to be incredibly dense to get completely through the booking process without knowing what they are doing.

2) The bait-and-switch obviously seems to be working for DL, the first mover in this, so it will help UA too.

Therefore this will end well for UA. Bad for customers, but sadly there's not much we can do about it.


For now you can send your low yield business to AS....until they implement BE too. You're running out of airlines to run too unfortunately.

1353513636

DL BE is arguably not as bad as UA BE. Secondly, on the route that this comment was directed at (and SEA-SFO), DL is not selling BE and UA is matching with BE.

spin88

This is totally retarded on United's part. I have to go to SEA next thursday, back on Friday. This less than 7 days before the flight. I looked and DL is $257 o/w, its a K fare. I can book AS/VX and it is $258. This is the pricing on nearly every flight.

Book the "we rip you off" skies - well they want $258 for BE. If I want Y it is $273.

These are not cheap fares, this is 40 c/mi, and the kind of business any airline would want. But United has basically taken itself out of the market for anyone except someone who is clueless or a UA mileage junkie. And meanwhile they are rubbing into their elites faces how they are having to pay $15 more not to get treated like crap. Very, very short sighted.

Put another way. I fly United 25, 50, 100k+ miles per year, and now on every flight I have to pay $15 more than Delta/VX/AS, etc, or I get treated like crap.... This ought to rub everyone the wrong way. This is a huge, sub-rosa, devaluation of elite status.

P.s. Same thing on the retrurn on 5/12. Delta (k fare) is $213, VX/AS is $214 in Y, United BE is $214, United Y is $229. Delta got more of my business.

p.s.s. On a highly competitive route, United has just priced itself $30 higher, and done so in a way that the extra "up charge" is rubbed in everyone's face. Will be fun to see how this has worked out on the 2Q call, but I guess they can blame it on Dao.

minnyfly

The only significant difference in product is the loss of a full-size carry-on if you're a kettle and miles if you're an elite. But there's a good chance you will have to gate-check a carry-on with DL's E fare anyway, and it's not a fare intended to appeal to status chasers.

Let's talk DL's E fare strategy for a minute, and how it's even more strange. I'll use MSP since I know the market best. For the most part, DL doesn't price match on nonstop routes to/from MSP. Their fares are usually priced higher, often much higher, than anyone else. I mean, what a rip-off to get the same product for a higher price. It's also not uncommon to see DL use an E fare to price match SY's standard fare. Again, what a rip-off. And then the worst example is what I'm seeing on routes like MSP-DEN/ORD. DL's E fare is HIGHER than even their competitor's standard economy fare, let alone their BE fare. Who would fly them?

We know DL rakes in the profits at MSP. No evidence that strategy is hurting them, and if anything it's helping them. All part of revenue management. You also have to ask the question of who's price matching who. The other airlines will want to price match UA's BE. Otherwise they won't get considered. Either UA will adjust their strategy, UA could force their hand to expand their basic economy fares.

haddon90

since AS doesn't follow the other legacy carries (miles flown instead of $), i'll take my chances.

and when EVERY carrier's normal Y is matched by UAs BE...what would you do?

jsloan

Either request a status match, if I felt another airline and alliance were going to be a good match, or grit my teeth and pay it. For my $15, I get E+ and a chance at an upgrade. I can't get that for $15 on another airline.

UA is consistently the best value for me personally because I value the things that their status gets me -- specifically, E+. I'm not happy with the direction of the program, and I certainly don't care for fare increases (whether management is up-front about them or not). But, at this price point, they remain a value. How much longer I'll be able to say that, I don't know.

Anyway, this is a short-term argument. This is a copycat industry. Either AA and DL will copy this structure or UA will drop it. I like AS -- and maybe they'll remain a holdout -- but they're just not that useful for me in AUS.

televisor

People with status might pay, or they might get annoyed that they're being essentially short-changed, and go the status match route (I've already earned status, now I have to pay an extra fee to make use of my status?). I'm certainly considering the status match, except I'm just about to stop flying a lot so the whole status argument goes away (except I've already earned *G for 2018, so I might stick with *A to make use of the lounge access when I take an occasional flight).

Non-status passengers (who are needed to fill these planes) are going to look elsewhere if the prices are otherwise the same. Obviously they can't go elsewhere on less competitive routes, but UA decided to introduce this on routes with competition from 3.5 carriers (I'm counting AS+VX as 1.5), I just don't see how there's any logic in that if they're not undercutting other carriers prices (and evidence suggests UA is either the same price, or more expensive). Yes, AA and DL might follow, but UA are doing this on routes where AS, VX and WN are all competitors (in some cases with better schedules).

boat9781

I noticed UA is now selling BE LAX SFO. I can't help but think this is going to hurt UA long term. I might be able to rationalize offering it on the lowest fares to compete with LCCs, but 1) there are no LCCs on this route and 2) they're offering it at higher fare levels.

See: https://ibb.co/kWkd5k

Is BE a product to compete with LCCs or is it simply an attempt to increase fares? I know the answer but UA is being disingenuous.

ermintrude

Ridiculous. Combine this with some companies not blocking out BE on corporate booking sites and you have a PR disaster and ultimately loss of high revenue customers. I can understand UA's thinking on introducing BE (the sneaky upfare) but I would pull the plug on the whole product. I could care less about paying the incremental upfare. Maybe Oscar needs to send Kirby for some common sense training.