Agreed.

The entire model is broken and needs to be fixed. You CANNOT have the C class cabin filled people paying 5% of the full C class fare and expect to sell a signficant amount of C fares. To command that kind of price you need to supply a product which is hard to attain otherwise. This means severely restricting the upgrades, and significantly improving the luxury element of the C fare.

It sure as heck isn't the customers fault, they are going to find a cheap way of doing whatever it is they want to do.

I hope UA's previous actions did not distort their analysis of the SWU usuage. UA gave 6 SWUs to many people who flew zero miles on UA in 2001, and many more who fly very few miles. (no where near the 100k some of us did to get to 1k)

I know many 1ks who gave alomost no business to UA in 2002 who gave away their SWUs to friends, family, and coworkers. I benefited myself from this phenomeona http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

This year UA is not doing the mass 1k lite or superlite program of previous years.

But I hope UA was smart enough to factor the results of their past generosity (mistakes?) into their SWU usuage analysis. That is of course assuming they actually did an analysis. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

AA has a similar problem (if there really is a problem) as UA with SWU usuage. They however came to a different conclusion during their analysis than UA.

I agree with Colo1K, though this problem is NOT unique to UA.

The levels of paying premium pax's is no where close to where it was 3 years ago.

Yet, the carriers choose to charge the SAME J/C/F fares even though the service levels have dropped. Revenue J/C/F on any of the transatlantic carriers is no longer good value for money. A $3000 C/J (D) fare would be the right way to get more revenue pax's to pay vs, the upgrades that are occuring.

However I do agree with others that the changes to the SWU rules are not fairly rolled out

1) UA, never mentioned the changes mid year or as they rolled them out, again an alert UA customer noted it

2) UA is assuming if we want to upgrade we will pay a higher fare. Well I have news for UA, no company with a rule of "lowest fare gets ticketed" is going to bite on this one. HOWEVER if UA made a higher fare better value than today - yet still lower than full Y, we would get takers (e.g. changes to dates on tickets with no penalty - routing changes would still incur penalties - no refunds).

3) UA's own website won't let you buy a higher fare

So you have to ask if revenue is what UA wants, why do they make it so easy for ual.com and travel agency corporate customers to pay a lower fare.

yes, the number of EXP's is plummeting on March 1st since no extensions were granted. problem solved.

Interesting. Cause or effect? I flew UA F recently on paid F (dom/intl conx - SYD) and was among the last in F cabin to be given meal choice as my SQ PPS only seems to count as *G and no need to ask about my BA/GOLD or QF/PLAT. So my $6500 was not valued. Last time I ever fly UA. And why are they in trouble exactly?

This would/should, of course, make a difference if by the time you were asked your choice of meal was no longer available. But you make no mention of it so I will assume that you did receive your first choice and the problem you have is with the placement in in line, so to speak.

Please tell me when, provided there is enough on board to give everyone their first choice, you (or someone like you; i.e. high status in *A but not on UA itself) should be asked to satisfy you as to your standards of appropriate treatment commensurate with the fare paid.

Thanks for your question. If there is enough on board, then it does not matter at all the order that people are served. Even if there is not then I understand why UA served its 1Ks first to keep them loyal. Its just I will choose a different carrier myself if available due to the risk of buying an F product and getting worse than F meal service (i.e. only 1 choice).

This generalization will have many exceptions, but my sense from past discussions on FT is that the majority of frequent flyers collect miles mostly for upgrades, and the majority of infrequent flyers collect miles mostly for free travel.

If so (and UA's marketing department must know), and if UA is serious about wanting to lure back full-Y passengers, would it make sense for UA to limit mileage upgrades (not free tickets) on international flights to P, PE, and 1K members, and reduce a little bit the competition for the C seats?

that's a fine suggestion! probably too sensible for airline management to comprehend.

of course, the frequent flyer often chooses upgrades because the freebie ticket earns no miles. maybe the airline could experiment-- increase redemptions for freebies (thus reducing ffm liabilities) by allowing them to earn miles. the mileage-price of freebies could even be increased, to compensate.

SWU changes - where´s the problem ???
Despite moving to the darkside of another Alliance for some of my future travels ,I still will stick with UA to 50,000 miles or so.(unless big changes occur to SWU rules)
The problem is for me ,I am finding it hard to find "H" fares on some of the flights I still plan to do on UA.- the obvious examples are BNE and SYD to CDG and FRA via the USA.They are either not locatable or they are available for only full price from United.