emcampbe

The select clearly says select on it.

But I think the 'MileagePlus Card' that the OP is talking about, like the Select, is a legacy card, well before anyone offered priority boarding, a free checked bag, etc. I doubt it would get early boarding or a rollerboard on BE.

Kevin AA

I recently bought a ticket on AA and the differential was $40, so I bought the BE ticket. My carry-on fits under the seat in front of me and $40 just isn't worth it to be able to pick a seat in the back.

sanfran8080

Is it just me or are u noticing a sizable $ difference from regular economy to basic??? I caught a $68 on way from TPA-MSY.....and the regular economy is $149.....ouch....That's a big difference.....as a 1k, I value my possibly CPU and E+ seat.

Plato90s

A couple more data points, a friend traveling with me booked through Expedia and got stuck with Basic Economy. Major PITA at check-in but he got an E+ middle seat for BOS-DEN and an aisle seat on DEN-LAS (half-empty flight).

Middle seats on the way back, however, for both flights.

I'll be testing it out myself for a short BOS-EWR hop where BE was $67 and regular economy was $82. For a flight of just over an hour, I don't really care if I get a middle seat. One of the few benefits of being a lowly Silver on United is that I can still board early and bring carry-on so... what the heck, I'll save the $15.

BeanTownBoy

I have noticed that as well. On the IAH/BOS routing, the difference used to range from about $4 to $15; now it can be as much as $70 each way! I assume now that E- has some experience and run time this is some variation of dynamic pricing?

aacharya

Yea, those massive differentials have been around for a while - I think I posted as one of the first to notice.

goodeats21

As United came out and admitted they bungled the rollout of Basic Economy on their latest investor call, I am amazed to see this type of thing on current searches on united.com.

How is this doing anything other than confusing everyone?

TravellingMan

Not sure how they plan to capture the market with their BE fares. I for one, am not going to touch them at all.

LGA - DEN
UA $118 BE
DL $118 nonBE
WN $118 nonBE

The winner is WN where I can change the ticket for free anytime and reprice it too. With DL I will lose the fare in the change fees and UA is never a thought.

segiddins

UA seems to be asking a $370 premium on what I presume is a G-BN fare. Won't be doing that, thank you very much.

TomMM

Well, DL's equivalent flight on those days in main cabin is $458.40. Which appears to be $10 more than UA's BE+premium.

OTOH SWA has MDW-ATL for $323 during your timeframe..

segiddins

just want to clarify, after poking around for a bit (I really had no interest in booking the above itinerary besides meeting a friend for lunch). It seems the G-BN fares don’t match the AP requirements of regular economy fares, so flights that are G..Y 9 have N available for peanuts, but the lowest regular economy fare available for purchase is something like a V.

mr8

Hello,
I'm looking at a one-cabin United Express flight to LAX the doesn't even have any economy plus seats. It's an extra $40 to "upgrade" to regular economy, but I'm currently at Premier Platinum for the year with a Chase Explorer card, so, if I understand correctly, I get my usual checked and carry-on baggage allowance as well as my usual group 1 boarding even on basic economy. The only difference I can see is that I wouldn't get any Premier Qualifying Miles/Dollars or select my seat - none of which I really care for on this particular flight.

Is there anything else I need to know about basic economy? I usually pay the extra for regular economy for the e+ seating, but it seems kind of pointless to pay the extra if that's not even an option on this aircraft.
I noticed that the wikipost says:
Does that mean that I wouldn't be able to check my bags all the way to their final destination if I were to connect onto a separate international UA ticket in LAX?

jsloan

If there are no E+ seats (CRJ 200?), then, yes, the only difference is PQM/PQD/lifetime miles.

BE shouldn't have an effect on the checked luggage. The combinability rules prevent you from buying a single ticket that includes BE along with another airline's flight, or BE along with regular economy on UA. The ability to check luggage across separate itineraries is at UA's discretion. They will not do it for a non-*A partner but should do it for a UA flight or *A partner airline. (Note that it's actually more difficult to check the luggage across two UA tickets, so arrive extra early accordingly).

However, I would give myself enough time to make the connection even if you need to re-check your luggage, not because I think that there's a high likelihood that you'll need to do so, but because of the myriad of other things that can go wrong on a multi-ticket trip (most notably, weather delays on United Express flights). Assuming "international" means transoceanic (not, e.g., Canada), you've only got one flight a day to your destination out of LAX, and even if UA agrees to rebook you after a missed flight, you're still looking at a 24-hour delay. So, I'd be looking at a 4-6+ hour connection if I were to try this. Of course, your risk tolerance may vary.

Kacee

I agree with you there's little benefit to paying up from BE in these circumstances, but like jsloan, I would be quite leery about separate tix domestic to international on UAX, and concur with the suggested minimum of four to six hours cushion.

emcampbe

Yes. In addition to being non-refundable, like most discount (i.e. non full-fare) airline tickets, anything in BE is also non-changeable, so you cannot SDC, or change your flight to a different day, etc. If you end up needing to go a day or two earlier, for example, you'd need to throwaway your BE ticket and buy a new one.