fumje

Agree it will take a few months to see how this pans out. Unfortunately, as much as I hate this, I suspect it may be successful from a quarterly-results point of view. With competition from LCC's, the market has been segmenting into two groups: highly cost-sensitive customers and captive ones. This fare scheme does seem like it helps them stay on top of that. From a customer experience perspective, it's terrible, but for revenue it may work better than an across-the-board fare increase.

Liquid_G

Replying to my own post here.... Today the regular Economy fair for this is showing 167. So perhaps this was a sale and the reg economy fair just wasn't updated.

TCD

I've been trying to work out why BE doesn't annoy me as much as so many other FTers. I think it must be that I started flying in Europe on BA. So I got used to deeply discounted economy tickets getting very few miles or status points*, and having to pay more for refundable tickets to get any meaningful status.

*non refundable economy earns 50% tier points, deeply discounted 25% tier points.

IADFlyer123

BE was just introduced on IAD-SFO (wasnt there yesterday). They basically moved the lowest fare (V until yesterday) to N and now V is $23 higher as the regular Economy fare (Jun 8th)

JohnneeO

The app has a button/switch labeled "Show Basic Economy fares". If you search with BE fares turned off, then the fare results shown on the next screen are non-BE fares. After selecting one of these non-BE fares, the next screen will offer a BE fare as a lower cost option, with a description, "Our most restricted fare". The fare you selected is the default selection, with Flexible Economy and First are shown as well.

PDXpress

Basic Economy now an option on MFR-TUS! That's a really random route.

Damn, being based in MFR I thought I'd avoid this.

Is BE on all routes now?

televisor

I think there's a big difference between UA's and DL's approach: UA are selling BE everywhere. Including on competitive routes where prices are matched across all airlines. DL are only selling it on some routes. (I.e. DL aren't selling it on routes where their Y price is permanently matched to Y on other carriers.)

Ocn Vw 1K

vanillabean, let me combine your thread with our forum's consolidated one on UA's Basic Economy features. You'll find a helpful wiki and lots of discussion of the different limits. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator.

emcampbe

This is a pretty good sign for UA. With all the non-story stories out there since the Dao incident (couple going to Puerto Rico parking themselves in E+, drunk guy arguing about checked bag fees, military guy being charged for an overweight bag...per policy, etc.), I suspect we would have seen reports, and even video, of even minor altercations resulting, from say, being charged a fee to check a carry-on size bag at the gate. BE fares have been on many routes since May 9 (IIRC), and from April in MSP.

IMO, BE will keep expanding, whether FTers like it or not.

Well...you could use the simple option - simply avoid the clearly marked "Basic Economy" column on the left.

The app does actually have a toggle. Perhaps that will be on the website soon?

My guess is they can separate out the bag revenue on carryon size bags that are checked at the gate, based on it being associated with an extra $25 fee (vs. carryon size bags being checked at the counter where it wasn't charged). For the bags checked at the counter, they can probably seperate that out, based on it being connected to an itinerary booked as BE. From there, you can count that revenue in the financial success metrics, and I'd guess that the revenue on BE fares including this ancilliary is at least equal, and most likely probably more, than if the people had just bought a regular fare upfront in the first place. Much like how in many cases, flying a ULCC isn't actually cheaper than flying a legacy, but it appears to be upfront.

Yes, its probably because you're used to it. I've mentioned it several times - the US carriers on not leading on the BE front - they are badly behind carriers just about everywhere else in the world (including next door in Canada - AC introduced Tango fares sometime in the late 90's, IIRC). Like always, they are doing it a bit differently than carriers in other countries, but it is the same direction.

People here aren't used to it yet. Just like folks got used to paying for food on domestic flights, people will get used to this, too. And then something else will come out that they'll have to get used to.

jsloan

DL has already announced that they're expanding BE domestically to most (all?) routes. They are already offering it on some routes where their low fares match other carriers -- it has nothing to do with ULCCs.

The only meaningful difference between UA and DL is that DL is currently only offering BE on their deepest discount fares, whereas UA is offering it on nearly every fare.

Kacee

Which is a really significant difference. And one that's more consistent with the supposed purpose of keeping the legacies in the game with LCCs on the online search engines.

Thanks for your valuable contribution.

jjmoore

If the other legacy carriers follow UA in this move, I wouldn't be surprised to see ULCC's raise their prices by $20 per leg as well since most ULCC flights are priced well below the UA BE fares.... this move by UA has the potential to drive a price increase for all domestic carriers..... just an opinion, of course, but it makes sense to me.

JBord

I agree. I kind of suspect the market hasn't quite realized this as a price increase yet. While the other legacy airlines certainly have, the execution of these rates is different. Possible they're just watching to see what happens to UA.

altbg

The Basic Economy fares also popped up on SFO-IAD. What used to be the cheapest Y fare is now Basic Economy.

Just as we all had expected and known for a while, this is an overall fare increase.

spin88

There are a LOT of differences between what DL has been doing, and what UA is doing.

(1) Delta only offers BE fares where the lowest fare categories are available, and with the exception of a few highly competitive routes where the lowest fares are not cut off at 7/14 days (MSP-ORD is the only example anyone has provided so far) it is never available for close in purchases. As a result, DL elites/business travelers are not likely to see these fares. On UA, you see them on nearly every trip.

The result is that on many routes DL/VS/AS offer a Y which is matched by UA with a BE, and to get a Y on UA is $15+ more each way.

(2) Delta still gives its elites status credit for any BE flights they take, UA does not.

(3) Delta does not restrict carry on bags, and elites board with their normal groups.

So a Delta Elite flyer can buy these fares, still get status, and only gives up seat selection and upgrades.

A UA elite can refuse to pay the upcharge, but then they get a whole lot less than Delta gives (a) no status credit, (b) no bag, and this impacts them on a whole lot more flights.

As I keep saying, United has in effect gone to differential pricing for elites, requiring them to pay more, and requiring this upcharge on nearly all flights (except those with only refundable fares left).