seanp7

Upgrade instruments have always been valuable only if, for the most part, you're flexible. No revelation here.

Comparing an $1800 domestic leisure flight to a near-essential smart phone, whose cost you can pay over time, is flawed.

zombietooth

I don't have one and don't use a smart phone for business communication and my business is booming. "Near-essential" is pure hyperbole. It's a luxury item-you can get a $200- smartphone that does 80-90% of what an iPhone does.

Kacee

Excepting routes that still have limited demand due to covid restrictions, they've never been so difficult to use before for long haul international. Mostly because UA now as a matter of unpublished policy only rarely opens space in advance and in most instances only clears them inside T-24.

seanp7

Congrats on business booming; you're not alone. The majority of smartphone owners have an iPhone, so you're in the minority, there.

And the majority of people don't spend $1800 EWR-LAX. I stand by that.

I agree with you here. Everything does seem to be clearing later...

Artpen100

Well could be. I have been watching since the beginning of the year a few dates for a TATL for the first week of June (first international business trip since COVID), and though the price has gone up from $4k to $6k, I have not once seen any PZ on direct or connections. Yet a month out, business class is generally only about 1/3 full. I already have good flights on AF/KLM saver awards, but plan to watch UA and see if they are releasing PZ at the end.

dinoscool3

What are you basing this on? BRU-IAD last summer I cleared at booking. ORD-LHR/ZRH-ORD cleared at booking in Jan for May. Personally I’m seeing the same space I did pre-Covid, for example BRU has always had lots of space and I see that frequently still.

findark

$1,800 round-trip? Are you kidding?

Especially considering leisure travel which is usually not extremely frequent... I'm not going to dig up exact recent figures, but the top 0.01% of households each earn about $10 million a year. That would be like a $10 ticket for the median family.

Then top 1% was around $500k in 2021 and with a $200k income you missed being the in the top 10% by a hair.

We could get into a long digression about what is responsible to spend on a vacation as a fraction of household income, but I would posit that certainly a few percent of households could easily afford that flight, and perhaps more than 10% could certainly manage it if they desired.

Perhaps the broader thesis of the thread is exactly that - people are finally coming to the realization you don't need to have private-jet levels of wealth to be comfortable on a commercial aircraft.

HNLbasedFlyer

Airfare is definitely going up - My economy April HNL-LAS round trip was $275. Just purchased my June ticket - for $980 - $1,800 EWR-LAX seems about right in F.

angetenar

$1800 for LA to East Coast in First actually seems cheap to me given current prices; I just paid $1100 for a multi-city LAX-PHL,BOS-LAX in June and got an upgrade offer for all 4 segments for a total of $800.

Repooc17

$1,800 roundtrip is a pass for me; one-way? Not a chance.

I am sitting on an AS transcon flight now I bought for under $200 roundtrip; comp upgraded to F both ways at the 75K window - G fare (lowest non-BE fare bucket). JFK to SFO did leave with 30 people on the UG list, one person cleared at the gate.

Food was actually edible in comparison to the crap UA serves.

Kacee

And that's a historically low fare. While it's still possible to fly J on the premium t-cons for under $1500 RT, those fares are getting harder and harder to find, as the airlines push back towards the $3200 base fare that was the norm before B6 introduced Mint and blew up the market.
11 years consecutive experience as 1K during which I've upgraded dozens of long-haul lights and advised many others in this forum on how to use their GPU/PP. I've been unable to use PP for long-haul since early 2020. Based at SFO/PHX, IAD-BRU does nothing for me.

zombietooth

For me, AS never comes up as the cheapest transcon in F for cash, mostly it's UA and AA. I wonder why they price their discount F so much higher than UA and AA, but yet seem to be an easier UG, based on your experience?

uastarflyer

I don’t follow the point of the example - AA is desperate so they must price low? UA has no problems filling its planes with frequent customers?

findark

I feel like the point of the rest of my post was missed - the assertion that "less than 0.01% of the population can afford" an $1,800 round-trip flight is absolutely absurd. That number is off by at least 100x if not 1,000x.

Kacee

Got that as well and completely agree with you. At my income point (definitely not top .01%) it's just a question of what gets prioritized. I recently paid $1199 for F on AA JFK-SFO and felt it was worth it. Others would view that as extravagant, and I respect that view.
1. Read the thread title.
2. AA is more generous with upgrades than UA, demonstrated by their upgrading an EXP 15 minutes post-purchase, whereas UA makes everyone wait until inside T-24.