Feb 9, 2019, 5:12 pm

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This is an archive thread -- the active thread is United's Basic Economy - Discussion, Q&A, ...

Important Note: these fares became available 21 Feb 2017 for MSP for travel beginning 18 Apr 2017. More markets were added 19 April 2017 for travel starting 9 May 2017.

Related thread: Basic Economy Airport and Plane Experiences (First or Second Hand)

If you booked before the dates above, you did not have a BE fare. If purchased on united.com you will see a warning like:

4. MileagePlus members will earn full Premier qualifying dollars, 50% Premier qualifying miles and 0.5 Premier qualifying segments for each flight, as well as lifetime miles and toward the four-segment minimum.

Link to UA's description of how these fares will work: Basic Economy.

Here are the key facts:

No seat assignments until check-in. Seats will be assigned by the system and cannot be changed.
*NEW* When purchasing a Basic Economy ticket, you will not receive a complimentary seat assignment but may be able to purchase advance seat assignments during booking and up until check-in opens. If you don’t purchase an advance seat assignment, your seat will be automatically assigned to you prior to boarding, and you won't be able to change your seat once it's been assigned.
No guarantee of adjacent seats with companions
No voluntary ticket changes after 24 hour purchase period
Carry on limited to 1 personal item unless the customer is a MP Premier member, primary cardmember of a qualifying MileagePlus credit card, or Star Alliance *G
Customers ineligible for carry-on who bring one to the gate will be charged a $25 convenience fee to gate-check in addition to standard baggage fees (source: @united twitter)
Customers will not be eligible for Economy Plus or premium cabin upgrades. This includes all forms of upgrades (CPU,supported or purchased). Likewise for E+ access (elite or purchased).
Customers will board in the last boarding group (currently Group 5) unless the customer is a MP Premier member, primary cardmember of a qualifying MileagePlus credit card, or Star Alliance *G
Companions on same PNR will have same boarding group and carryon if one on the PNR has a waiver
No combinability with regular economy fares or partner carriers. Interline travel is not permitted.
Tickets will earn RDMs (based on fare and status), PQMs (50% of distance), PQSs (0.5), PQDs, in addition it will count for minimum 4 segment and lifetime miles (New as of Dec 2018)
Basic Economy tickets will use booking code 'N'
Online check-in only with paid checked bag, otherwise need to see a United representative to verify the onboard bag allowance and receive a boarding pass.

In air, passengers will receive the same standard economy inflight amenities including United Economy dining options, inflight entertainment, United Wi-Fi (availability depending on the flight)

related threads
New UA/*A TATL -LGT Economy fare - no free first bag, no changes/upgrades allowed

Benefit impact of restricted economy fares on UA Elites (Basic Econ, -LGT, Light Econ

Pre-announcement speculation thread (now closed) New "Budget Economy" fares

United's Basic Economy - Discussion, Q&A, ... {Archive}

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Sep 9, 2017, 11:40 pm

#2731

minnyfly

Join Date: Apr 2011

Programs: WN, AA, UA, DL

Posts: 1,313

Quote:

Originally Posted by ermintrude

I've noticed (I only looked at a few routes & dates) that AA's BE pricing genuinely competes with the ULCCs and hasn't applied a price hike in Y when I looked. I'm not a fan of BE in general but UA IMO has shown how not to do it.

That's contrary to what I'm dealing with and basically all reports on the AA board. So far AA's pricing strategy is very similar. It is what it is I guess. All three will probably advance it further up the fare scale.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsloan

Indeed, and it's become a trend.

All they really had to do was apply a rule that said "for each economy fare, mark it unchangeable, and add these restrictions," in order to add the combinability rules they wanted and to annotate the fare as BE. Instead, they've taken some ham-fisted half-manual approach that is consistently producing this garbage output.

Your idea doesn't sound like it would work well against ULCCs.There are times when a standard fare will be so uncompetitive that a very low BE-only fare is the way to go. This one didn't seem like garbage.

And I think we all have to keep in mind that UA in the middle of overhauling their entire revenue management software. Might be a factor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kacee

But it's very poor RM to have a $213 fare differential to BE. They're either going to sell the BE seat or likely lose the sale. The structure should be set up to sell the non-BE seat at the highest price they can get, not to sell all the remaining seats at a money-losing price.

And UA doesn't make any money selling t-con seats for $85.

Not necessarily. They want to sell BE seats. To a certain point that's a goal on every flight. $85 is better than $0 too.

Sep 9, 2017, 11:48 pm

#2732

jsloan

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Oct 2001

Location: Austin, TX

Posts: 21,406

Quote:

Originally Posted by minnyfly

This isn't my idea. This is what they've been doing in 99.9% of all cases. This one appears to have been an intentional departure from that strategy, but it's one of the very, very few. Nearly every other BE fare to date has been a fare-by-rule set up exactly as I've described. (And they've still managed to mess quite a few of them up).

This particular fare excepted, BE is not, will not be, and has never been about competition with ULCCs. UA would not need the system they put in place in order to offer cheap fares that compete with ULCCs. If all they wanted to do was to offer a few seats at $85, they could have used a traditional fare structure and just let N be the cheapest bucket.

Any discussion of ULCCs, by any of the legacy carriers, is a smokescreen. It is a fare increase, plain and simple, and I'm thrilled to see that UA's is failing.

Sep 10, 2017, 12:01 am

#2733

minnyfly

Join Date: Apr 2011

Programs: WN, AA, UA, DL

Posts: 1,313

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsloan

This particular fare excepted, BE is not, will not be, and has never been about competition with ULCCs. UA would not need the system they put in place in order to offer cheap fares that compete with ULCCs. If all they wanted to do was to offer a few seats at $85, they could have used a traditional fare structure and just let N be the cheapest bucket.

That strategy is a failure waiting to happen. That might work if ULCCs operated the same way and only had a few cheap seats to offer. Not reality.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsloan

Any discussion of ULCCs, by any of the legacy carriers, is a smokescreen. It is a fare increase, plain and simple, and I'm thrilled to see that UA's is failing.

Ah, so that's the real point. Get back at UA. Well, it has worked for DL. It's apparently working well enough for UA. And now AA believes it works too. Good luck.

Sep 10, 2017, 1:43 am

#2734

mduell

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: May 2007

Location: Houston

Programs: UA Plat, Marriott Gold

Posts: 12,693

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsloan

But that wouldn't provide benefits included with the fare in line with that the ULCCs are providing.

Sep 10, 2017, 1:47 am

#2735

jsloan

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Oct 2001

Location: Austin, TX

Posts: 21,406

Quote:

Originally Posted by minnyfly

That strategy is a failure waiting to happen. That might work if ULCCs operated the same way and only had a few cheap seats to offer. Not reality.

This makes no sense whatsoever. You do not need differential pricing and linked bucket availability in order to offer a single low fare. You only need it if you plan to offer a series of incrementally increasing BE fares. It has nothing to do with the number of seats that you want to sell -- or that your competitors want to sell -- at a given price point. BE is not, and has never been, about ULCC competition. Not for DL, not for UA, and not for AA. (Note that UA copied the execution of BE from DL; the only difference is that UA promised last-seat availability and initially published BE fares all the way up the fare ladder). BE is an attempt to extract extra revenue from existing customers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by minnyfly

Ah, so that's the real point. Get back at UA. Well, it has worked for DL. It's apparently working well enough for UA. And now AA believes it works too. Good luck.

I'm thrilled that UA has failed because I fly UA regularly and I would prefer to pay less for my flights. It has nothing to do with "get[ting] back at UA." I'm disappointed that (limited) BE has worked for DL and I hope that theirs fails also, because I want UA to withdraw the feature entirely and they would likely follow suit if DL were to bail.

Nobody should be hoping for the success of this business model except for airline executives.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mduell

But that wouldn't provide benefits included with the fare in line with that the ULCCs are providing.

Huh? I'm not sure what you mean by that. UA could easily publish N bucket fares that have all of the same restrictions as BE fares but aren't differentially priced and don't have linked inventory buckets. The reason that they didn't do this was that they wanted to be able to offer (relatively) expensive BE fares -- originally all the way up to Y, and still all the way up to S, I believe.

They didn't need the system they have if they just wanted to offer $85 BE tickets. They only needed if they wanted to offer $85 BE tickets sometimes and $400 BE tickets at other times, depending upon load.

Last edited by jsloan; Sep 10, 2017 at 1:51 am Reason: Add additional response

Sep 10, 2017, 1:52 am

#2736

Kacee

A FlyerTalk Posting Legend

Join Date: Apr 2013

Location: PHX

Programs: AS 75K; UA 1MM; Hyatt Globalist; Marriott LTP; Hilton Diamond (Aspire)

Posts: 56,455

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsloan

Nobody should be hoping for the success of this business model except for airline executives.

Yes, this is all just designed to squeeze more money from passengers while at the same time reducing services and benefits.

Sep 10, 2017, 2:59 am

#2737

IAH-OIL-TRASH

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Sep 2003

Location: Honolulu Harbor

Programs: UA 1K

Posts: 15,023

Quote:

Originally Posted by jsloan

...Any discussion of ULCCs, by any of the legacy carriers, is a smokescreen. It is a fare increase, plain and simple, and I'm thrilled to see that UA's is failing.

It's (1) a fare increase on UA frequent flyers - basically a tax on loyalists and (2) only attracts the dumbest of the Kayakers (and only for one trip before they realize UA doesn't give a lot of them anything better than they can get elsewhere). I'm not sure (2) is a good long term strategy. I think a lot of us are putting up with (1) because of various reasons, and I'm hoping United does a face-plant on this.

Sep 10, 2017, 10:35 am

#2738

bajrbajr

Join Date: Mar 2008

Programs: DL BA Amex

Posts: 916

What happens with BE customers on an over-sold flight?

What worries me is that if they don't have a seat assignment yet, are they more likely to be involuntarily denied boarding?

Sep 10, 2017, 10:42 am

#2739

Kacee

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Join Date: Apr 2013

Location: PHX

Programs: AS 75K; UA 1MM; Hyatt Globalist; Marriott LTP; Hilton Diamond (Aspire)

Posts: 56,455

Quote:

Originally Posted by bajrbajr

What happens with BE customers on an over-sold flight?

What worries me is that if they don't have a seat assignment yet, are they more likely to be involuntarily denied boarding?

Yes, definitely. Also because fare paid is one of the key determining factors for picking your lucky IDB recipient(s).

I'd say it's almost guaranteed that BE pax with no status will be the first to be IDB'ed on any domestic flight.

Sep 10, 2017, 10:42 am

#2740

lincolnjkc

Join Date: Feb 2005

Location: CLE, DCA, and 30k feet

Programs: Honors LT Diamond; United 1K; Hertz PC

Posts: 4,164

Quote:

Originally Posted by bajrbajr

What happens with BE customers on an over-sold flight?

What worries me is that if they don't have a seat assignment yet, are they more likely to be involuntarily denied boarding?

No.seat assignment, potentially lowest fare, and less likely to have MP status all make them more likely to be at the front of the line to be IDBed if push came to shove. However I wonder how often IDBs happen especially post-Dao.

Sep 10, 2017, 11:41 am

#2741

bajrbajr

Join Date: Mar 2008

Programs: DL BA Amex

Posts: 916

I had thought IDB was always based on check-in time.

I purchased a ticket for my niece to return to MCO after the storm passes...
last night I was watching the fares quickly climb, so I grabbed the UA BE fare for $60. The regular economy fare was $100. If had realized that seat assignments were given at the gate and not at check-in, I woulda paid the additional $40.

Sep 10, 2017, 11:49 am

#2742

jsloan

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Oct 2001

Location: Austin, TX

Posts: 21,406

Quote:

Originally Posted by bajrbajr

I had thought IDB was always based on check-in time.

Here is the applicable clause from the Contract of Carriage (25(a)2(b)):

Quote:

The priority of all other confirmed passengers may be determined based on a passenger’s fare class, itinerary, status of frequent flyer program membership, and the time in which the passenger presents him/herself for check-in without advanced seat assignment.

That doesn't specify an order. In practice, I'd expect it to start with non-status passengers on award tickets, followed by non-status passengers on BE tickets. Ties would be broken by sequence number (last to check in).

Sep 10, 2017, 11:50 am

#2743

WineCountryUA

Moderator: United Airlines

Join Date: Jun 2007

Location: SFO

Programs: UA Plat 1.995MM, Hyatt Discoverist, Marriott Plat/LT Gold, Hilton Silver, IHG Plat

Posts: 66,854

Quote:

Originally Posted by bajrbajr

I had thought IDB was always based on check-in time....

The stated policy is

Quote:

Involuntary Denied Boarding (IDB) Selection Process

United's involuntary denied boarding (IDB) process is automated and customers are not subject to discretionary choice by agents. This is our process:

First, agents will deny boarding if a passenger does not have a seat assignment prior to boarding the aircraft.
Customers are then sorted by fare class (estimated fare paid) and type of itinerary.
Customers with the lowest paid fare are placed at the top of the list for involuntary denial of boarding.
If a group of customers paid the same fare, then the group is sorted by time of check-in.
Customers with frequent flyer status will not be involuntarily denied boarding, unless all of the remaining passengers have frequent flyer status, in which case the lowest status will move to the top of the IDB list.
Customers with special needs (unaccompanied minors, passengers with disabilities) are excluded and are not involuntarily denied boarding.

Sep 10, 2017, 11:50 am

#2744

Kacee

A FlyerTalk Posting Legend

Join Date: Apr 2013

Location: PHX

Programs: AS 75K; UA 1MM; Hyatt Globalist; Marriott LTP; Hilton Diamond (Aspire)

Posts: 56,455

Quote:

Originally Posted by bajrbajr

I had thought IDB was always based on check-in time.

Nope. It's based on fare class, itinerary, status, and time of check-in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WineCountryUA

The state policy is

Where did you find that? I've never seen the policy stated in so much detail!

Sep 10, 2017, 11:56 am

#2745

jsloan

FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Oct 2001

Location: Austin, TX

Posts: 21,406

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kacee

Where did you find that? I've never seen the policy stated in so much detail!

It's linked to the post-Dao report. And if it is truly the process, it's mind-bogglingly poor. According to that, they'll IDB a GS with no seat assignment before a non-status passenger on an award ticket. I don't believe this is the process they'd actually use.

I'm also not 100% sure that the stated process is allowable per the CoC. (It depends upon what "the time in which the passenger presents him/herself for check-in without advanced seat assignment" actually means; that's the only part that implies that not having a seat assignment should be a deciding factor.