DELee

link: https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly...c-economy.html

David

thejaredhuang

Just another excuse to raise fares, charge the same price as regular economy for less included, raise the price of regular economy.

myperks

So if the point of origin is not USA/Canada, Australia, or Tahiti, BE will not be available?

cant imagine such a long flight without being able to select seats or a chance at upgrade with instruments.

garykung

I really want to see how UA offers BE when many relevant flights are suspended.

emcampbe

the same way they offer them now for domestic and trans Atlantic?

The more interesting thing to me is there is now a third ‘class’ of BE fares - seems like this differs from TATL with the inclusion of a checked bag.

why? Lots of carriers, including Asian carriers, offer fares without seat selection in advance on long hauls, even carriers that people on here regularly praise, such as SQ (in fact, I was under the impression even with an option, many travelers ex-Asia don’t select seats in advance).

As for a chance at upgrade, while in this FT bubble it might be incomprehensible for folks to take long haul/ULH flights in Y, far more people do it than in premium cabin - we are in a bubble here that generally has a lot of different preferences (and probably budgets) than the average traveler. Many don’t even have FF accounts, much less access to upgrade instruments. These BE fares, for the most part, aren’t really targeting the kind of traveler that is going to be trying to use instruments.

kevflyer

Please fix your hyperlink DELee it's got your name at the end so it's returning not found. I had to copy and paste the link.

Also, hope this won't affect Premium Plus pricing.

myperks

only commenting about personal preference, not of the product itself. BE has been available on trans-Atlantic for awhile and as you mentioned other Asian carriers with product similar offerings (and many European carriers).

Repooc17

For price sensitive passengers, as in most leisure travelers and majority of airline customers, the difference between basic economy fares and standard economy could be a few hundred dollars. Given the choice, they would choose the lower fare every single time. Also, unlike you and me, and most at FT, most of them don't have upgrade instruments to submit in the first place.

I am reading this merely as general expansions of BE fares and general guidance on TPAC BE fares, and not application of specific flights/routes.

paperwastage

checked NYC-TYO, NYC-SIN and other city-pairs that should be covered under UA/NH Joint Venture

not sure how the JV works out (checking regulations.gov for any new filings)

1) the United BE fares specifically said "Any UA FLIGHT OPERATED BY UA" only, no flights/codeshares operated by NH, though BE fare rules say "TICKETS MUST BE ISSUED ON UA OR NH."
2) NH isn't selling any BE fare (yet?), only via UA.com
3) BE fares are about $80 cheaper RT compared to non-BE fare
4) VLX91SO2 vs VLX91SB0 -> seems like 2nd last digit is a B
-> "F ~..-B0" seems to work on matrix to avoid BE
. similar to TATL-fares
-- not booking to N (K, L,T......, V, Q. dont think it goes further than Q, don't have EF though to check)
-- 1 free checked/carryon
-- basically a "supplement" to every fare class)
-- but no -LGT postfix though
- gflights/united.com properly marks these restrictions/BE like any other BE fares. OTAs properly marking restricitons as well
- seat selection bundles are even more stupid
-- $55 for seat bundle each way (any non-E+ seat, including preferred seats), or a la carte ($24 middle, $30 aisle/window, $50-$70 preferred)

jsloan

We all knew this would happen eventually, but the details here boggle the mind.

Sample fare, SFO-TYO VLXN4SB0 ($1159), a 120-day advance purchase, 14-day minimum stay behemoth. It appears to be an $80 base fare RT discount compared to the non-BE fare, VLXN4SO2 ($1239), which has the same conditions. (And, yes, a "basic economy" V fare ).

These fares were actually created on Wednesday, June 2. If I compare them to fares that were effective on June 1, it appears that they rewrote the entire fare table, and somehow NH just raised their prices by $80 whereas UA raised prices by $80 and then added the BE fare. On June 1, the corresponding fare was VLXN4SOV ($1159), on both NH and UA. On June 2, NH raised VLXN4SOV by $80, and UA renamed it to VLXN4SO2 and added the BE fare at the old price point.

So, unsurprisingly, this is yet another naked fare increase by UA, disguised as a discount. But, actually surprisingly, NH appears to have gone along with this despite not having a BE fare to offer. I don't see anything on either the ANA or JAL sites about BE, and it would be shocking if ANA launched a BE product without JAL doing the same thing. So I'm not sure what to expect here; certainly we can hope that BE dies a quick, silent death, but as it stands, it appears UA would rather that people fly their competition....

kevflyer

Also noticing $80 base fare RT increase to HKG tickets for non-BE. On another note it appears HKG fares have jumped across the board (even doubled!? compared to pre-covid? I hadn't checked prices lately)

Kmxu

AA has had the TPAC BE fare for a while. So, there will no defection to AA. If people do not care for MM status, they can certainly choose foreign carriers.

dilanesp

This isn't true. What BE does is allow UA to offer a lower price point service that competes with discount airlines while offering a higher price point which competes with full service airlines.

Without BE, an airline has two bad choices:

1. Match discount carriers with full service, and lose money.

2. Charge a fair price for the service actually offered, and get unfavorable listings on searches for the lowest fare.

And no, (1) isn't a good deal for a traveler, because profitable airlines can expand and offer more routes and better service, while unprofitable airlines have to slash routes and service.

BE also makes it more likely that regular fare travelers will have seat availability.
BE is good. I am glad UA is expanding it.
​

kevflyer

I disagree as there is no evidence of lowered price points. BE fares simply replace the previous lowest (now regular) economy fare class' prices (see post #10). So if you just want the cheapest fare, you're still paying the exact same price as before, only now you are getting less.

What you said would be valid if regular economy's pricing does not go up as a result. Unfortunately as we've witnessed on every airline and every route, that is not the case when BE fares are introduced. Raising the price of regular econ ticket then introducing a lesser basic econ product at previous price point while disguising it as a discount is in no way a win for the traveler.

paperwastage

logic might make some sense when fighting with spirit domestically (even if real-world examples donT always Match)

Transatlantic? Fine, compete with Norwegian/wow/...

What curious to know what discount mid/long haul carriers are available for transpacific?

The only one I can think of: AirAsiaX (kul-kix-hnl)
​​​​​​Or you do some dodgy self connecting ticket on low-cost carriers (usa-europe, europe-asia)