Boraxo

Exactly. It's much worse for elites than taking away benefits. If you make me buy E+ okay I get that - it's a better seat. If I check a bag I can pay for that service. But here I have no choice - I am forced to buy an uncompetitive fare just to get assigned seats for my family - something I get free elsewhere. Same with EQM.

It's a massive devaluation of elite benefits.

That's what I hear but not what I've seen. On some domestic routes I see +$80 per person each way and that's just not going to fly for elites. I can buy perks for less on the competition (or get them free). Again WN seems to get it right: $15 for EBCI (equivalent of seat rez) and $25 for BS (free drink, preferred seat & boarding, etc.)

Personally I'm hoping that the experiment is terminated after a year, a la Song, CO-lite, TED, etc. I can live with that. Otherwise it will be sayonara and hasta la vista for leisure trips. Maybe that's the goal: drive out lifetime elites so the benefits can be monetized.

findark

Certainly not to the investors - UA was very upfront that it would raise revenue: something like $1B I think?

emcampbe

I've never seen that. They were always clear that it was meant to raise revenue. There's no business point in offering to fly someone for say, $50 on a flight that they have been paying, say $80 for. Why woul UA, in this example, want to voluntarily get )30 less for something that costs the same amount to operate?

UA wants to either have you buy regular economy, at the price above BE, or buy BE but sell you extras like the checked bag that you could have brought in as a carry on with a regular fare.

Rational thoughts here, but as illustrated by post history, spin loves to pounce on UA for every single decision they make, even when other carriers do the same thing. Others get a pass, but never UA.

wh6cto

That's $20 each way, but it can be much more.

So far, this is the worst "markup" I've seen to get out of BE:



Maybe this BE fare is actually reduced, but 80% more for non-BE?!?

Kacee

It could be deliberate, or it could be a pricing error. Those are rampant.

jsloan

This one appears to be deliberate. The non-BE markup is currently $40 across the board on AUS-IAD G fares and $20 on K, L, S, and T fares.

emcampbe

perhaps just trying to beat F9 pricing on that route for the pax most focusing on lower pricing...F9 nonstop fares are $108 each way on their nonstops that day (if you join their 'club').

24left

Some valid points of course.

United Warns Elite Frequent Flyers: Unless You Spend More Money, Your Flight’s Gonna Be Bad

by Gary Leff on August 12, 2017

http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea....hts-gonna-bad/


Mods - feel free to merge or delete if posted elsewhere

Dublin_rfk

My reading of this is: "Tell your travel office you don't want these seats."

Rowyourboat

I bought a BE fare on SFO-LAX and thought it was perfect. The miles don't really matter, I don't need to get upgraded, and group 1 boarding + carry-on was great. I thought the ticket being orange in my app was a little embarrassing, like a scarlet letter on you, but other than that no issues. Would definitely use these for short-haul routes.

Boraxo

Or you could buy VX or WN, get full EQM and RDM credit, and easily avoid a middle seat. Personally I would take these over UA even if the price was higher.

Often1

Lot of frothing at the mouth who don't want to and therefore won't purchase BE.

DWBEDBBE.
(Don't Want BE, Don't Buy BE).

It's that simple.

findark

They seem to be pushing the double markdown (or markup) on the G/N spread only. On the other hand, that was an AUS-IAD r/t for $100. I'm not intimately familiar with the market, but it seems awfully cheap.

spin88

I will simply note again that United is doing something very very different in using BE on fares outside of the very lowest fare categories (who says that United can not "lead" ). United is (was?) hoping that others would follow it down this road of an "elite tax" and Kirby has been sending signals to the industry to follow them, or UA will have to back down. While United has backed down some (it no longer is doing BE above mid-level fares) it is doing something very different in both the much larger range of fares impacted by BE (so that business travelers like myself run into the BE upcharge demand) and in not giving any elite credit for BE fares unlike OALs (DL gives full credit, AA on the few BE fares they have gives 1/2 credit).

And this is not my view, UA (via Kirby on the 2Q call) has frankly admitted UA is doing something very different:

"I think basic economy will be more of a tailwind. It’s less of a tailwind right now, because on some of our competitors, the standard, you can get the standard product on our competitors for the same [price] that we get the basic product on United Airlines. That won’t be the case in the long run, but in the near term, we get benefits from selling up more customers, but I’m sure we lose some share as a result of that as well....in the near term, you know, the upside that we get from upsell is offset, it’s impossible for us to make sure, but I’m sure it’s offset to a larger, maybe a complete degree by share shift”

this of course is just on pricing, taking away elite credit for BE is also unique to United.

Feel free to discuss what impact BE is having on you, or how you think United will be impacted by BE, or feel free to speculate how long United can stick with its current plan if DL/AA don't match UA's version of BE, etc, but IMHO it is not correct to just pretend that United is doing what other airlines are doing, they are not. @:-)

mduell

BE here is sub-4cpm, even non-BE is sub-7cpm. This low-yield stuff is what BE is for.