zrs70

I echo what was said above regarding upgrades going to employees. If there is no one who is able to support the upgrade with an instrument of some kind, employees have the right to those seats.

As a sidenote… United only has one flight a day from Taipei these days. I believe the plane to Tokyo is a code-share operated by ANA.

rowenb

The "right"? Are you making a moral argument, or are you referring to some sort of contractual provision?

LarryJ

I believe he is referring to the provisions of the employee travel policy.

twkidM3

For my flight from SFO to TPE, I did not use anything to support an upgrade.
I got upgraded at the gate before boarding the flight because it was oversold in economy. Honestly, I think it's wrong for flight attendants to be able to be on standby for all three classes. We have 3 people in the family that has 1k, and I think it's wrong because we spend money to achieve that status. I understand that there are rules for intl upgrade and need supporting vouchers/mileage/fee but they should still give the benefits to customers rather than their own employees.

bocastephen

In an oversold situation, it's unlikely a non rev will clear into any cabin - they cannot bump people from oversold Y and put employees in undersold J unless said employee is on a positive 'must-ride' space pass.

If the flight has space to accommodate everyone, an employee can list in any or all cabins depending on its likelihood to clear and each cabin has a different cost-share amount assigned to it - depending on the purpose of travel or type of pass used, it's not completely free to them.

If the flight has space in J and space in Y, why should an elite be upgraded for free into J (i.e., a CPU) when the rest of us in J either bought the seat, used a GPU or used miles/copay to sit there?

twkidM3

Thanks for the clarification.
On the sidenote, I definitely need to start learning about fare codes on united.

Wayside

NRSA's always appear on the standby list for the listed cabin and all lower cabins. On a 3-class bird if they list for F and aren't cleared into F they'll automatically be eligible for J and if that's full they can be cleared in Y. If they just list for Y (or J) they don't appear on the list for higher cabins.

findark

As noted in several posts - if you did not waitlist an upgrade then you are not eligible to be uprgaded. If there are empty seats in F or J and no revenue pax waiting to upgrade, then UA NRSAs will be upgraded into those seats and then they will be left empty if there are no more NRSAs. That's UA policy.

bluedemon211

Delete

WakeTurbulence

Good on UA for maintaining some kind of pricing integrity. I don't think I've ever seen an intl F buy up (from J) for less than $1,100 with the exception of HKG-SIN. I wouldn't be too happy paying a $4k premium over J to book into F in advance only to have UA sell it out for $600 as a TOD. I suppose the same argument could be made for domestic buy ups, but most F TOD's aren't sold at a $3,500 discount from the A/P fares.

DENviaLAX

Sure, but then you're just getting into semantics. They tried generating more revenue by offering a buy up, and you deemed it not worth it. They could have offered a buy up for $50 or even $1, and it still would've technically generated a little extra revenue. But then, that's also vastly devaluing the product and, in my opinion, would make people less likely to pay full price for it if the ability to get it so cheap at check-in were a possibility. Maybe they view a $600 figure the same.

Either way, the travel privileges afforded to employees are a benefit that employees have earned. So as long as no eligible customers were bypassed (and it doesn't sound like they were), then employees have every right to use their flight benefits to get the best left over seats on that plane.

United and other airlines, in a way, are very fortunate that they're able to offer their employees such a great and unique perk for employment. It's a way to keep wages down and, in turn, produce greater profits (and therefore, in theory, lower fares for customers). Make no mistake about it, if it weren't for the travel benefits airline employees enjoy, it'd take a major increase in wages to get people to work for them. Especially cabin crew who need to commute. I imagine a great number of airline industry employees wouldn't even consider a career in the field if it weren't for those travel benefits, and that would be a huge problem for airlines in the struggle to be profitable. So in my personal opinion, everyone who complains about employee travel benefits, in a general sense, needs to look at the bigger picture. Again, as long as there are no shenanigans happening and everything is copacetic.

gold23

When I'm travelling and see employees receiving benefits that are difficult for me to obtain without significant $ or instrument pain, it irks me. That's 100% me being greedy and expecting to be treated better since "I'm the customer." When I sit in front of my computer, I recognize how selfish that sounds, and I completely agree with your paragraph above. These perks likely increase morale and enhance the benefits of a very difficult (often) customer-facing job.

afrozenfyre

Agreed. Let's also not forget that many elites are flying on their employer's dime any many of those employers allow paid J/F as a "perk" or business necessity.

twkidM3

i'm sorry, but i could go on all day about airline employees and their level of professionalism + service compared to Asian airlines.
Benefits are so good that they could careless about customer service.

Kacee

Anyone who thinks US airlines' customer facing employees are well compensated is seriously uninformed. It's quite sad really that anyone would begrudge them seats which would otherwise fly empty.