Doppy

It's crazy that they are limiting spirits in international PP when you can get spirits on a domestic express flight. How much money can that possibly be saving?

Even when it is part of the service offering, there is no guarantee that the water will be waiting for you. In Polaris business, it's about 50-50 whether there will be water in the seat when you sit down; if not, they usually but not always give you water before the flight departs.

I never get on a flight without at least some water - you never know what's going to happen.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

PDB is very unpredictable. Bring something if you need it.

lhrsfo

I think this is the key with PP purchases. If it's a small premium to Economy, then you get a much better experience plus it's a much much cheaper upgrade to Business. If it's a large premium in price then it's probably not worth it unless you know it's going to be full at the back and you don't want to be squashed in by a stranger. The lack of decent service just confirms the lack of value proposition.

mathgeek1978

Exactly my thought when I first read OP's post. I have flown in PP many times and this is in stark contrast to my previous experiences. I hope it is just a one-time outlier.

tryathlete

good thing I saved dozens of drink coupons from year’s past. I’ll hand them out like candy in PP next week on my way to DEL!

narvik

Unless, of course, the FAs also have new, and strict instructions to NOT accept expired drink coupons!

MatthewLAX

So true. I just don't get it.

threecap

I’m still confused - I believe OP (or other posters above) said they weren’t even allowed to *purchase* additional drinks (presumably liquor or otherwise) in PP. Was I misreading that?

So is it UA policy that only one liquor drink is complimentary in PP, but unlimited beer/wine is comp’d? Or is PP limited to only one drink?

gmt4

I think so much of the public criticism has been focused on returning Polaris to an acceptable international business class standard that P-Plus has been largely neglected by UA and overlooked by the public. Polaris has seen improvements with a goal of enticing premium pax and business travel during this recovery phase, but no effort has been put into anything aft of the J cabin. Covid and competition were and will remain the excuses. No one at any level expects anything except a seat and seatbelt in economy so that more or less is what it is. But P-Plus is marketed to be more and true to form UA marketing does not match reality.

P-Plus has never been more than marketing hype IMHO. It looks impressive but to me that's as far as it goes. I for one have never been impressed by it, and by reading this thread I see my observations and experiences are not unique.

rankourabu

Just flew AC last month from Europe.
AC PY has always been bad. But they still managed to make it worse recently.

The meal was whatever was leftover from J for the first meal (why bother have a menu). Beer and wine free poured from J bottles, no liquor.
One early service only. No other drinks.
Pre arrival only water, no food or snack even tho it was on said "menu".

The seat is also much less spacious than the purple United seat without adjustable head wings.

IFE comparable on both

zombietooth

With current FA staffing, morale and training, there is no possibility that a differentiated, "better than coach, semi-luxury", product will be consistently presented. My read on these reports is that the FAs are barely getting by with their coach responsibilities and don't have the time or motivation to try and meet the standards of P+.

P+ is a huge marketing fail because no one thinks it's worth a good premium over Y. Right now, Polaris is literally at the level of European carrier coach service with a nice lie-flat. I don't know why people are expecting P+ to be any better executed.

Kacee

It seems to be selling well enough. As an alternative to 3-4-3 for a long-haul flight, it has it's appeal. So I'm not sure UA has much incentive to fix it (or anything else, really). This management is not internally driven to provide a quality in-flight product. Cost reduction is the consistent focus.
Fully agree. If you buy PE, do it for the better seat, not the service.

FLYMSY

Agree with the above. It’s hard for the FAs to provide good service on the 763 when there are only 3 of them to cover the P+ and Y cabins. And, sometimes these TATL flights will only have 5 FAs total!

Aussienarelle

This was not a perspective I had considered and your point is well taken..

I think when UA was in survival mode during a pandemic we cut the airline some slack.

Businesses are there to make money.

There are low cost airlines but folks do not pay a premium. I use them for short hops in Europe and Asia. I know what I am getting and the price = product.

Similarly with Southwest. I love the flying experience with them. Product > price.

UA has basic economy (LCC) and premium products (Polaris/Premium Plus/Economy Plus) and the premium product is being jeopardized by cutting into the bone of the soft product. The FAs are critical in the delivery of the soft product. Who in Willis Tower is thinking strategically and long term?

bocastephen

Because United doesn't care. This should never be allowed to happen in the first place - it's absolutely impossible these FAs did not receive mandatory training on the PP product unless United now has no control, or even interest in which FA is serving which cabin. This is almost as bad as AA allowing their totally untrained new hires to 'learn on the job' and work the F cabin without having a clue what they are doing.

Inconsistency in product delivery based on the personal whim or laziness of the FA has been a hallmark of United service for years, this is nothing new. The catering issue is more troubling because this either indicates a catering order issue from another clueless department, or worse, if Y was not full, they just deliberately served Y meals to PP while either ignoring the boarded PP meals, or decided to eat the PP themselves.

If Matthew can share the product service sheet from the IFM for us to print out and show rogue FA's it would certainly be helpful - at least in telling a rogue FA that their poor service will be written up with corporate on arrival. If something onboard ends up being really bad to this extent or worse, I would even go so far as suggest that you "break your cover" as a third party QC consultant hired by United to review onboard service and tell the FA and purser the service was so far away from the expected standard, that the crew members involved would be written up in your report immediately on arrival. If that doesn't trigger some kind of immediate improvement in attitude, then we can conclude who is really in charge of the asylum.