eyeball1

Just as an aside AC does allow free seat selection for families with young children on their lowest (tango) fares.

spin88

I am not a fan of the "no seat selection" thing that e.g. LH has done. That said, because only a very few people get seat selections, IMHE (two recent flights on LH) being seated together with kids has not been an issue. LH gave us seats together.

The problem as a family with BE fares on UA is that since everyone else has gotten to pick their seats (if they paid the elite tax) usually only middles remain when flights are full.

The result is that BE on UA is not only an "elite tax" but its a "family tax" as well.

Statman

Incorrect analogy because you can't avoid taxes.

You can avoid BE fares all together by spending a bit more to purchase regular economy seats.

ChiefNWA

I assume a center seat is a decent bet when booking BE? I never fly UA so mileage earning, etc isn't an issue for me. I'm looking at TPA-IAH-SAN then SAN-LAX-SFO. BE comes in $100 cheaper. The only flight I'd really want to avoid a center on is IAH-SAN, just not sure it's worth the $100...

Boraxo

Concur. And even so it would not be a problem if UA's non-BE economy fares were competitive. But they aren't. IME the BE fares at best simply match the lowest AS, VX and WN fares, which provide a better product than BE. It's not apples-to-apples, and therefore UA is simply not competitive with anyone.

As BE is simply not acceptable for many of us, we are forced to pay the elite tax (x4 for families) if we want to fly UA and enjoy our perks or pay less to fly the competition and lose out on E+ seating.

Does not sound like BE was winner for UA in Q2 - maybe it's not so smart to fill your planes with non-elites and give away E+ seats (as reported above) to the many passengers who apparently are delighted to pay discounted BE fares. Then again I'm just an over-entitled elite ... so go ahead, double down.

findark

This is why I try to avoid thinking of BE as a "tax". It's a red herring number which is clickbait - the truth on the ground is that, in the markets where WN and AS are the main competition, UA doesn't seem to be willing to offer a competitive price. BE is a non-starter so I simply just consider the regular Y price as the price of a ticket.

nycityny

True. The question is whether United can sell a lesser product for the same price as other carriers charge for something better. Time will tell. As it is this new pricing makes them money as those who want "normal" economy pay a premium for it. But search engines for low fares still show United as competitive even though they are not.

Exactly, that's my thinking as well.

spin88

If one is a non-status passenger on United, well any pre-set seat is not gonna be good, status credit is useless, and provided you don't want to bring a carry on bag, BE might be right for you.

Now if this is NOT cheaper than AS/VX/DL/WN/AA then what is the point? But hey, BE vs. non-BE is no real skin off your chin.

But if one has UA status, and wants to maintain it, then BE is not really an option. You not only loose E+, but you loose getting status credit (EQM, EQS, EQ$).

This is why this is not simply a fare increase, its instead a tax on those who care about using the benefits of or keeping UA status... What is being taxes is what you get from having an ongoing relationship with United.

This is IMHO what is so utterly short-sighted about UA's BE scam.

findark

I personally disagree as a carry-on and a pre-assigned window with no wing in my face is worth at least $20 over a random, poor seat and no baggage. While there are reports of BE getting E+, I fully expect that for every BE pax sitting next to an FTer in row 7, there is another one in 39E on a 739.

Even if I had no status, BE is simply not acceptable to me. I will admit, though, that I'm not a great metric for this as I generally feel the same way about the E- experience, and I will find a way to book F for flights over ~800mi. For short hops I'll take my status from other travel or (gasp) book WN where no status Y pax are at least treated like humans, and I fly in Row 1 >75% of the time.

spin88

There is no way that I am every going to buy a BE fare either. But then I am not the typical flyer, I have status on three airlines, fly 150k+ miles/year, and will pay for F on trips of over 4 hours.

I am not thinking about myself, but rather trying to game out exactly what United thinks they are trying to do. I pointed out very early that I did not think this would work out well as a business matter for them, and so far I have been right.

I can see some people (those w/o luggage, and w/o status benefits, who just expect a crappy seat) to buy BE over Y, and save $40+ RT. The problem is that these same people can get a non-BE on OAL for UA's BE price.

And for those who have status on United? Well now they have to pay a noncompetitive (higher) fare to use their benifits.

Since OALs are matching UA's pricing, they are not winning any new traffic with BE, and as people figure out UA is giving less, expect UA to loose sales. But the damage is ever greater with Elites. either because their company will not pay extra to fly UA, or because they don't like getting ripped off (my feelings) some elites will bail on UA over time.

As I keep saying, the book away will build, and once elites have left UA, or had better experience on OAL, it is very hard to get them back.

Kacee

That's most definitely not the question as UA sees it. Their question is whether customers will pay more for a non-BE product. Remember, they do not want you to buy the BE fare, they want you to pay a premium to avoid it. From their perspective, this is supposed to be a revenue positive change, not revenue neutral.

TravelTheWorld66

But according to United, regular economy hasn't increased in price and BE is just a cheaper alternative. So at best it's a revenue neutral change, unless they are saving money elsewhere due to decreased costs associated with BE and not having to award miles. Or maybe they're looking to make money on baggage up-sells due to unaware pax (let them save $20 at booking, but then hit them with a $49 baggage fee at the gate).

Or maybe in fact United has increased regular economy prices across the board. Who knows.

Kacee

I don't know where you're getting that from, because it's not reality.

UA did not cut prices when they introduced BE. They laid it on top of the existing fare structure, so now you pay a premium (typically $20) for a non-BE fare.

TravelTheWorld66

I remember seeing United claim that regular economy prices weren't going to increase. This was before the rollout. I can't remember exactly where I saw it, but it may have been in a social media response from United (which could have been false information). Now it's driving me crazy trying to remember where I saw it.

minnyfly

Then why do you even care about what airlines do with BE? You're not in the market for them. Should be out of sight and out of mind. If you're prone to get disgusted with and rant about every airline that institutes a price increase, you'd very quickly run out of airlines to fly. So that rationally can't be why you hate BE. If you hate the concept of BE, an understandable position, we can assume you had to abandon DL long ago and now are looking to eliminate AA. Right?

You're correct about one thing. You are not the typical flyer. So it's uncommon that an airline will cater to your type of customer. There's a lot more BE customers to grab.


UA still wants some people to buy BE. It's also revenue positive if they can snag price-sensitive customers that would otherwise choose another carrier. There's a sweet spot in the madness of up-sells and BE-snags.

BE has not been a universal price increase. It's not hard to find fares that are lower than what competitors are offering or simply cheaper than seen before. Pricing is so dynamic that this many months later a person can't be comparing prices last winter versus now for a specific route. That comparison has long passed.