jsloan

Looks like ROC-IAD is the Last Honest Market™. The only BE fares I see listed are round-trip fares which are exactly twice the one-way regular economy fare; these are only used if you were trying to create an itinerary with some other BE fare on it (since BE fares can only be combined with other BE fares).

In other words, your guess was prescient -- BE fares pretty much don't (currently) exist for this route.

spin88

I want to highlight your response, which I think is where this is all headed, and this is quite a change in tone from how you have viewed United in the past.

No matter how much for other factors (reaching MM status, collecting miles for a goal, maintaining status in the only program you have status in) may push you to United, it is just hard ticket after ticket to have it crammed into your face that you are paying more because, well you are flying United.

I think overtime elites who can, will crack, and look at other options, or other airlines.

Delta has many years of BE experience, and always kept BE very cabined (only advanced purchase fares in the lowest fare category, and even then not on major business routes) and I again say that United is doing itself no favors in how it is implementing BE by sticking it to its elites and rubbing it in their faces that they are suckers to pay more with every ticket.

fly18725

Delta says it offers BE on every domestic route, plus many international routes.

Let's also be honest about the dynamics of airline pricing: if BE isn't delivering the results United expects, they will continue to change how it is deployed (e.g. reducing the number of fare buckets it is available on). Testing boundaries can be a good strategy. Sometimes you get your hand slapped, other times you hit the ball out of the park.

Let's also be honest about the double standard that exists: United is routinely criticized for following Delta's lead. Here's a situation when it choose a different path and are being criticized for not following Delta's lead.

findark

Looks like UA is folding again on BE aggression. Just spot-checked a number of markets on the West Coast and they've scaled down to BE only on G fares (SFO-LAX/SAN/SEA). Then I saw SFO/WAS (okay, IAD/DCA) they've pulled BE entirely (at least, no G fares and no BE). Possible there are more markets where they went down to G only, but some markets (SFO-ORD/MSP) still take it higher.

Still matching WN rather than undercutting on BE, but the difference G-BN to K is now just $8.


And again, with a lot of the "I can't believe the differential is so high" posts, $107 on SFO-IAD is less than half of the lowest fare I saw all of last summer. At least they are really scraping the bottom of the barrel with the fares.

belynch

Interesting. I wonder if this route was always exempted or if this is new

Because the path they chose seems to be worse; not only from a customer perspective but also in the admissions from Kirby during the Q2 call that until everyone else falls in line with UA's implementation; they're going to see some booking attrition.

Yes, UA's implementation would have garnered the greatest shareholder value, if everyone else followed suit, but they haven't and now UA seems to be throwing some pasta at the wall to see what sticks.

For the first time in ~10 years I likely won't requalify for 1k because UA is just difficult to do business with. It's a shame because I stuck with them through their operational struggles in the hopes that my accrued loyalty (mileage in the bank, status, etc.) would be worth it in the long-run. Only to find out that they mis-calculated the value of my loyalty and attempted to tax it to the point that I now rarely step foot on United aircraft.

I've had no issues flying DL and WN over the past three months.

spin88

Wow, you are right about UA throwing in the towel on BE on the coastal routes. I only checked SFO-SEA, but the changes are dramatic.

When UA rolled out BE, it was an elite tax of $30+/- RT on all fares, going up to very high priced $370 o/w on last minute fares.

Then about a two months ago they scaled it back and only had BE up to fares that were about $160 each way ($320 RT price point).

Now, I can look for the cheapest tickets ($86 each way, as of September 12) and there is NO BE at all.

UA only has BE in this market with $64 each way tickets, and then only as of September 19, 21 days advanced purchase). Then regular Y is $74

What United has done - it appears to me - is simply match Delta's version of BE on only the lowest fare bucket, which is 21 day advance, $64BE, $74Y.

That is - in this market at least - a total cave in.

I think the BE experiment did United some real damage. Not just in book away, but in upsetting the most loyal UA flyers, many of which booked away, and some of which may stay away.

While some praised United for leading the way, or claimed BE was the future (see Hunter Keay) what United was trying to do - an elite tax - was completely antithetical to how airlines have historically been run; trying to retain existing high frequency/value traffic by offering better benefits to them, not charging them more each time.

P.s. I might note - because it fits with what Kirby has said - that I have received in the last two trips, upgrades on United as a gold. I have never been upgraded on UA since I went from 1K to MM Gold, and these were business travel routes, where I would routinely be 10-15 back on the list.

SFO-PHX, prime thursday business flight, was upgraded 72 hours out, on the return Friday evening flight, I was #1 on the upgrade list (aced out I think by a TOD Upgrade). Then Flying SEA-SFO on the 5 pm flight, I note only got gate upgraded, but my MM companion did as well.

minnyfly

And where might someone be a frequent flyer and consistently pay less for those perks? When has paying less been a side benefit of being loyal and chasing status or miles?


What "major business routes" don't see E fares?

Stop with the misinformation. In the past I've pointed out to you that I could buy a DL E fare close-in (like next day) on business routes routes such as MSP-ORD.

The only reason DL BE usually goes away less than two weeks out is because of their pricing structure that raises prices close-in--often to levels much above the competition. So they have their own ways of an "elite tax" beyond just BE. Remember, you have admitted that you are not the common DL customer. Your situation is far different than the vast majority of DL customers.

Kacee

WN has been very savvy about competing with UA lately, I suspect taking deliberate advantage of the dissatisfaction the BE fares have created. They've been dropping their "Anytime" fares to undercut the flexible UA fares pretty substantially ($33 less OW on SFO-SAN). And UA has totally failed to react.

Meantime, I've been CPU'ing all my flights at T-96. Earlier this year, I was consistently missing at 50% of the time on E and U fares.

findark

Interesting play on the part of WN. I definitely agree that if UA's implementation of BE has been hamstrung by anything, it's their complete inability to be agile in an individual market and adjust fares accordingly. They absolutely rolled out the product too far and too fast and clearly don't have the staff available to manage it.

I've also seen WN loudly bashing BE in their banner ads for intra-CA fares too - can't find the actual advertisement but something along the lines of "the only basic thing here is that everything is included" (typical WN pitch).

spin88

Interesting that your (since you fly UA more than I do) CPU experience has been the same as what I have seen.

I would expect a pattern where when BE was first rolled out, some booked it w/o knowing, but little book away. But I would expect the book-away to build, and elites start to look around over a period of time as they got tired of paying up with each flight. What you (and I) are seeing in smaller F lists is what I would expect to see as people got tire of paying more to avoid BE, some just give in and go BE on short flights, some fly OALs.

I don't know WN's pricing well, but IMHE they have not always matched UA. I know that DL/AS/VX are shadowing UA's BE pricing with regular Y (other than for DL in the very lowest fare bucket) in SFO-SEA.

I think the part I bolded though applies to to nearly everything United does. The UA attitude post-merger has ben "we are so big you have to fly us" and there appears to be a strong dose of that in UA's BE moves. United is unable to look at the competitive dynamic market by market and adjust rather than having one analyst-driven size fits all. [Another example, VX/AS/DL all give a meal on SFO-SEA in F, UA gives a snack basket.]

You can't sit out there with non-competitive fares and not have it impact you over time, particularly when you rub your non-competitiveness in people's faces. A good example was my UA seat-mate SEA-SFO the other day. They worked for the largest exporter in the US (hint, hint) and their travel portal had "approved" and exception flights. My seatmate wanted to fly UA (they like to have miles/status in *A as they like the *A network best of any) but said that recent flights have all shown AS/VX/DL as approved, and UA as all being exception flights as they were $15+ more. The result was this was their only recent UA flight, as they did not want to have to do a written justification or pay the fare difference themselves.

fly18725

BE is effectively a fare increase. There's never a guarantee a fare increase will "stick" and be adopted by competitors. But, you're leaving money on the table if you don't try. Pricing is fully transparent and it is nearly impossible for an airline to operate in isolation.

I know it hurts, but if you're only buying the lowest price tickets, it is difficult to argue that the value of your loyalty was mis-calculated.

Upgrade lists are always smaller during peak summer vacation periods due to a drop in business travel. Plus, two experiences do not make a pattern.

The data and anecdotes shared by United does not indicate that elites are buying BE fares.

United does not operate in a vacuum. If fares and the product were non-competitive and people are booking away, airplanes would be empty. They're not. Being larger in the domestic market is a competitive advantage. I would expect United to almost always have higher fares on SFO-originating flights because outside of a few OAL hub routes, they offer the best schedule.

P.S. Like most large corporations, the "largest exporter in the US" allows the purchase of higher fares up to a certain differential - I was told $200. Like most Concur users, you get a drop down to pick a reason why the higher fare was needed.

spin88

I think United would have done themselves less damage with a fare increase, others might have followed, and when they did not, it gets rolled back in a few days, week at most. United hung out with noncompetitive prices for 4-5 months, and still is hanging out in some markets with them.

And the "who cares you are lowest fare" point is badly misplace with BE. BE required UA elites to pay $15+ o/w to avoid the BE fare because it impacted so many fare categories. A better way of looking at this was "who cares about you, you are flying in Y"

Again, United looks like it is backing away from this, which suggests that those who said this would not end well for UA, were, surprise, surprise, surprise, correct-o-mundo.

P.s. my seatmate said that what was in/out of policy varied by how expensive the flights where, but that head to head, on shorter flights, the UA flights at $15+ o/w more expensive were showing as being out of policy. Perhaps you are making the same foundational mistake that UA made with its extreme form of BE in assuming that companies would just happily pay another $15+ o/w ON EVERY FLIGHT so that its employees could fly the friendly(sic) skies .

fly18725

Again, United does not exist in a vacuum. If it were charging "noncompetitive prices," it wouldn't sell tickets and there'd be a massive erosion in load factors. While the prices may not be preferred by some customers, there are people buying BE and non-BE fares.

Well, a fare increase by United would require elites to pay more to fully utilize their elite benefits on United (vs. another airline that did not raise fares).

Clearly, United and other network carriers do care about passengers flying in Y: they award more miles and benefits to customers purchasing higher fare classes.

Well, your description of your seatmate's claims do not align with the travel policies provided to Concur. Someone is spinning a story, and it ain't Concur.

lincolnjkc

Aren't the business rules Concur uses more-or-less customized on a company-by-company basis to company travel policy rather than the other way around (e.g. companies don't shape their travel policy/ies to Concur, they shape Concur to their travel policy?)

I don't interact with Concur on a regular basis because quite frankly we're too small for it, but a NGO charity client does [arrangement: our services and indirect expenses are donated/free, they're responsible for travel and any other direct expenses], and IIRC, their policy in Concur is, essentially, "anything is fair game as long as it's within $300 of the 'lowest logical fare'" but I can see other companies/nonprofits being more conservative/stingy.

Meanwhile I'm thankful that I'm in the position to set our travel policy and N-class has been explicitly prohibited at any expense (non-refundable/penalty fares have always been discouraged, though, for operational reasons, so it wasn't that big of a jump)

spin88

As far as I know they are, and to step back a little bit, if they were not, and Concur had unchangeable default of allowing fares up to $200 as the other poster suggests, they would not long remain in the business.

But hey, lets not let facts get in the way...

p.s. I have no inside information on this particular employer, just reporting what I learned from my conversation.