emcampbe

maybe it's like South Park, where they go to 'downtown Canada' (IIRC, they play a football game between the Roughriders and the Roughriders).

TravellingMan

I have stopped flying United and so have family and friends. It makes no sense when WN is a good option in DEN. I will be surprised if they back out any time soon. The regular United attitude is to keep at it until it is too late. Like the RJ rides from hell. Now the ever dense 777 fleet along with BE fares.

EmailKid

YVR-SFO-YVR on mainline, chance for u/g, MLL ....

Given a choice, that was it for me EVERY time

Of course I'm not a slave to the clock anymore

spin88

Circling back to how this was implemented, I need to go SFO-PHX-SFO on Thursday. So the options are AA and UA. UA has a slight edge over AA since I have status, and am close to 2MM. So I go and look and UA is regular Y (since it is refundable) at $379 each way. AA is $359 each way. So when UA raised fares for BE, then backed off BE when (like here it is insulting to make it a BE ticket) they left their fares higher. The result is that United is now noncompetitive, and sorry, I am not paying United another $20 more to fly them home. I would rather take AA, crediting to my AS account, which is what I am going to do. (And yes, I know that is going away at some point).

sbm12

The company historically has blocked seats for airport assignment, in part to handle groups without assignment. Maybe not for BE specifically, but seats do get blocked to account for groups traveling together. Depending on the route it could be 10-20% of the cabin on board. And it happens dynamically so as a plane fills up seats will eventually disappear from online availability but not show as "blocked" in the first place.

I still would not recommend to someone buying BE that they are likely to sit together. But that's a different detail.

aacharya

You'd give up 1300 PQM, 6000 RDM and E+ at booking for $40, or about a 5% difference. Not sure what you are gaining from AS crediting, but it would be curious where the calculation would be if the UA flight was the same price.

spin88

As Alaska gold I get exit row (or they gave it to me anyway given my high fare). The planes are A321, so are much more comfortable than what United will fly. I get status credit on AS (which I care about more than on United, where absent major changes I will never try for greater than my MM (or when I get it 2MM) status) and I get miles on AS, which are IMHO more valuable than United miles. What I really loose is a visit to the Amex Lounge in SFO, but with a 6 am flight, I am not going early enough to use it, and best to avoid the lines to get into UA security at SFO,
But even w/o the ability to get AS miles, I am simply not going to pay $40 extra to fly United. I would pay $40 more to fly VX or DL, but not United. And I don't think my perspective is that off. For high fares like this (I just paid AA $717 to fly RT SFO-PHX) an airline should do what it can to get that fare, not be noncompetitive.

And note this is a direct result of the BE price rise. Before BE, fares would have matched, and I would have likely taken UA.

TomMM

Your money, your choice. Isn't that how's it suppose to work?

Baze

But most of the codeshare and miles earning ability (at least domestically) between AS and AA are going away Jan 1 so need to take that into consideration if FF benefits are important.

notquiteaff

My home airport mostly sees CR2s for UA, and I have seen BE fares for a while. I haven't had a need to book UA since then, but I suspect I would probably buy the BE fare since there appears to be zero benefit for a MM flyer who doesn't give a rat's behind about PQMs and PQDs and virtually never changes flights once booked. It's not like I am missing out on a great seat....

gene2632

Booked on UA1924 EWR to LAS tonight. Lots of empty seats, all but one in E+ so it looks like anyone on a BE fare is going to get a break. I expected to see the E+ fill up at t-24 when the Silvers like me could grab them for free but there are still more than 20 empty right now. Oh, we got an MUA that cleared a few weeks ago

emcampbe

and herein lies the problem with BE on leisure routes or times when E+ doesn't fill up with elites or those willling to pay. They need to find a way to make sure the E+ seats get offered to those who give more value rather than as a reward for those buying the cheapest fares and that's all that's left.

I suggested an algorithm upthread somewhere that uses allows those with higher fare class/* status the opportunity to claim these seats at check in, even using automated systems rather then handing them out at the gate to BE pax. Not sure if BE are given E+ at the kiosk if that's all that are left (reports seem to indicate yes for elites, but not sure about non-elites). All should be given a gate assignment if E+ is all, while offering regular fare paying *G and non-elite YBME (and maybe a couple of other fare classes below, based on flight and breakdown of fares) E+ for free at check in. Then moving the BE fares into the freed up E- seats - either giving them out to new ones who check in, or automatically assigning them at some intervals to already checked in BE fares, and sending a new BP by email (or allowing the GA to simply print up new BPs with the assignments already done. Seems pretty simple for a computer program to be able to do this in 2017. If it's just a GA delving these out at the gate, it's almost certain, and we've seen reports of it, too, they are giving out E+ to BE. It's a bad precendent to set if you want these folks to buy up to regular fares next time.

nomad420

Traveled several times with friends on BE tickets who almost always (depending on the load of course) get E+ seats by the GAs. I could be wrong as I don't buy BE tickets but at times it appeared unavoidable with high load E- and minimal E+ seats taken they then just start filling E+ with BE.

drowelf

Is there any profile or way so that the reservation system will never, ever shows me BE Fares. I don't plan on ever buying one of these things.

I've almost bought them a couple of times, as I'm so used to viewing the prices in the first column and I just am not interested in them.

EWR764

Agreed. If we can toggle off BE on the mobile app, we should have that functionality on the full site. BE is a fare product I never, ever plan to use at UA and that is not an uncommon sentiment.

Perhaps it can be within Expert Mode?