jsloan

Fare rules don't cover IRROPS. That's in the Contract of Carriage, Rule 24(E)2:

UA would be well within its contractual rights to be inflexible on IRROPS for BE tickets. They are under no obligation to endorse the ticket to another carrier, nor are they required to offer the next available flight or any particular routing.

I'm not arguing whether or not this is a good strategy, just: (a) as mduell states, some BE customers have claimed that UA is behaving this way in IRROPS, and (b) I'm not aware of any published policy that would prohibit them from doing so.

Open_Road

BE definitely looks very easy to game with the right status. I have *G with a non-United airline. I'm just returning from my domestic LAX-SFO-PSC-SFO-BUR trip in BE to see the solar eclipse. I've checked a bag both ways, brought along a big backpack as carry-on, boarded in group 2, and visited United Clubs three times along the way, all for free. Seat selection is the only thing I miss, but on the CRJ-200s it placed me in rows 2-3 on each of the three flights (on the LAX-SFO flight in a 737, I was in the back in E-). Life could be worse.

Wooglin

Out of curiosity, does your non-UA airline accrue any miles (RDM or PQMs) on the BE N fare?

minnyfly

Or to get a seat with tolerable legroom (or much better), or free entertainment, or sometimes in-seat power, or available WiFi, etc.

Even if locked to a route, there's still no doubt which airline we'd rather be flying on.

EmailKid

Seat selection on the CRJ is pretty much irreverent, as ALL seats SUCK @:-)

Club access is nice, but I'd rather get better seats

And yes, as regular YVR-SFO flyer I speak from experience (no clubs unless connecting in YVR).

iahphx

I'm not sure if this has been discussed, but it can be a PITA to buy "regular" seats when BE is being sold on your flight. I just ran into it on an AA fare. Booking for the xmas season, AA's Basic Economy fare was $103 and regular coach was $114. Especially as an AA elite, there's no way I want BE to save $11. The problem is that all the third-party websites I looked at weren't programed to offer regular economy if there's a BE fare offered on your flight. If you didn't want BE, it seemed like you had to buy your ticket on AA.com. This was particularly irritating to me because I wanted to use credit card loyalty points to pay for this, but the Chase, Citi and US Bank websites would only sell me the BE fare. Finally, I called the US Bank travel agency (I really wanted to use up my Altitude new card bonus given the 1.5 cent rate for airline tickets), and they were able to MANUALLY sell me the regular economy seats at the 1.5 redemption rate. The agent had no idea if they were working on a fix to this problem.

emcampbe

some offer the option to exclude them. I know the hopper app does, and I haven't tried, but know I had the new version of Kayak download and at least the notes say there is an option to exclude, as well

Sykes

fwiw, third party travel agents can rebook on any routing because of irrops or schedule changes. The only restriction is that Basic Economy customers must be rebooked into the Basic Economy booking code (N class), which as far as I know still tracks to Y even though the higher BE fare bases have been eliminated. I'd be surprised if United gave first party phone agents less authority than third party travel agents, but training and consistency has always been an issue.

(This message is caveated by the fact that I don't sell Basic Economy, so I don't have first-hand experience with this policy, but if I did I wouldn't hesitate to reroute one of my customers during irrops.)

qukslvr619

I was doing a cursory search SFOSTL on 05SEP and was surprised to find several instances where Basic Economy was priced either at the same fare as Restricted Economy, or in some cases where BE was "more" than other Economy fares. Not sure if there is a price increase that is in works or if its certain markets where this sort of thing occurs, but fairly confusing.

Kacee

It's a UA pricing error.

Very very common. The rollout of these fares has been extraordinarily poorly conceived and executed.

diburning

I've always wondered how they dealt with the BE inventory. I bet revenue management is tearing their hair out trying to balance this. Since BE books into N, and they try to keep it available at all times, I wouldn't be surprised if they have some sort of script that keeps funneling inventory into N.

findark

N = Y. Done.

Kacee

Also, since BE is now only available on select economy fares, it requires availability of the underlying economy fare basis. Once that's sold out, no more BE.

ghetto_economy

In case anyone is curious, was not able to bring it on as a carry on per the check in desk. (40L backpack, maybe 2/3 full) Biggest annoyance to me was that I was not able to pay a fee to upgrade to a full size carry on at the counter- more concerned with convenience than money.

Boarding pass makes it super obvious you're a BE customer (mildly amusing going into a lounge with that) and United was hassling a BE flyer about their bag size as I walked through the gate. Seemed like both sides were thrilled.

WineCountryUA

Yeap, no passenger initiated ticket changes allowed.