6rugrats

Yes, it matters to me. E+ access is the main reason I've stuck with UA. I have no business travel, and pay for everything myself, and I've taken a less convenient/more expensive flight to stick with UA so I could sit in E+. Playing E+ roulette is not attractive to me.

Now, I am thinking of switching over to AS.

OUFan76

Wow! $16k for only 25,000 miles? I almost always fly paid first and I don't even approach that spend. What are you buying?!

aacharya

That's my question - is it really roulette, and is it so hard to get at 24 hours out?

OUFan76

Guess we will find out soon enough. Maybe give some people a reason to push for 50,000 miles, which was probably part of United's point.

STS-134

My plan is to first see if I can reach at least 1P this year. Not sure, it's looking like about a 30% chance. If I can reach at least 1P, i'll probably stick around through at least January 2013. If not, I'll wait and see if there's any blowback from these proposed changes. I probably won't be booking many UA flights.

If I cannot get E+ at the time of ticketing, fortunately, there are a lot of other choices:

* For domestic, lower 48 travel, there is WN. WN has a better product than UA E-. More comfortable seats, better service, etc. And they don't charge the type of fee that I hate the most: change fees. I merely PUT UP WITH UA's change fees in order to get E+, but if that's gone, I am likely gone.

* For travel to Hawaii, there is HA. Like WN, it has a better product than UA. Fares are also routinely 10%-40% cheaper too. If I cannot be assured of getting a decent E+ seat at the time of ticketing, then I will just book my Hawaii flights on another carrier. The thing is, these routes are so leisure-heavy, that UA would not be impacting ANYONE by giving E+ seats to 2Ps on these routes. But their stupid one-size-fits-all policy of reserving E+ only for 1Ps and above on all flights, not just hub to hub, will cost them dearly if they don't do an about face.

* For TPAC travel, there is NH and JL. Like the other two competitors, they have a better product: more comfortable seats, newer planes, better food, and more attractive FAs. And let's face it, whether I'm in C or in Y, I'd rather be in NH/JL C than UA C, and I'd rather be in NH/JL Y than UA Y.

Hmm...anyone see a pattern here? EVERY SINGLE ONE of UA's competitors that I mentioned, has a better product. The ONLY thing keeping me flying UA over WN, HA, NH, and JL was E+, and no baggage fees. If E+ disappears for 2Ps, UA had better find other people to fly their [poor] product, because I sure won't.

spelunker

It must really depend on the route, I guess, because on flights from my home airport I almost always see open E+ seats (unless it's a regional jet, of course). I don't think it will affect me too much, so that's nice, but I'd imagine if I was at one of the bigger airports it might be more of an issue.

jtsaltman82

I will likely be shifting to some combination of AS/B6 for domestic. For international, I will look for the best hard product/price point on a case by case basis.

I've been 1P or 2P since I graduated college, and E+ was the #1 reason I stayed loyal to UA, despite less convenient routings or prices. I see no reason to maintain that loyalty now.

dalston

A little hard to tell. I can tell you that I'm often seeing E+ full or near-as fullon routes like SFo-ORD 10 days in advance of travel these days. But its not clear to me what percentage of those are 2Ps and their companions. My guess would be that it would be roulette on many hub to hub routes and other elite heavy routes (ie SFO-BOS) and pretty comfortable on some other routes. But its only a guess.

BearX220

Flying out of SEA I rarely see an open E+ seat at pushback, or any open seat at all really. The seatmaps are usually zeroed out weeks before departure.

As a 2P this year and next owing to the accident of more hometown clients and less business travel, and a former CO elite who was a happy Plat for some years, I plan to ditch UA over the program change. I took the precaution of making MVP on Alaska this year as a side bet. I will move my domestic bookings over to AS, DL, and occasionally AA... overseas trips to DL/KL/AF... and credit everything to the AS program.

If F upgrades are going to be a distant memory -- on UA and everywhere else AFAIK -- I will prefer the sure thing of a forward aisle seat on AS or DL over the chance of a middle seat in E+ at check-in on UA. I would also prefer not to put up with UA's manifold other miseries (dirty planes, evil staff, ORD weather meltdowns) and without the salve of a meaningful FF program for sub-1K flyers I am not going to.

davef139

I am pretty observant, if you ever watch E+ cabin fill up, there are lots of people with 2/3/4 zones boarding which tells me they bought E+ or got placed there by a GA. I could see them lowering the price point slightly to attract a larger crowd, I would think that they know they can make money, they will push the product harder.

This line of reasoning is why you will see 1k's complaining come Q2 when UA realizes it can sell those First seats and make extra revenue. I don't see YBM upgrades mattering much, although I have bought 1 M-Fare this year.

Superguy

Let me ask you this: would you feel like playing the E+ lottery on a long haul international flight? Even a transcon?

They haven't even addressed how they'll assign the E+ seats when they process the upgrade list for the other elites. Will there be an E+ upgrade list?

As to my plans ... I don't know yet. I'm considering a few different options.

DL is out.

I started a new job that requires international travel. I'm on the east coast. Policy is greater than 9 hours for paid C. So unless I go some place like Turkey or Moscow, I'm likely not going to get paid C in most of Europe. I will get it for Asia. I'm likely also going to be subject to the Fly America Act. I can fly foreign carriers on code shares though.

So this leaves me:

AA. I never looked much into this option, but so far, the treatment doesn't look any worse than UA's currently.

US. I still prefer Star Alliance as a whole. I may start crediting all my miles over there, as it looks like US will treat lower level elites better over all. Plus status EQMs can easily be bought if needed.

I'm considering status matches over to either of those.

I'm also considering WN (shudder). I live near BWI and that's a WN hub now. I see UA as no better, and probably worse now, than WN. I can get more convenient flights out of WN for at least the same price as UA if not less, plus access to nonstops I didn't have before. I may go here for domestic and another carrier for international.

We'll have to see though. What I do see is no reason to be loyal to UA - even if I can get over 50k EQMS. It's just a matter of time till they screw the 1Ps more.

BearX220

That was the downfall of CO OnePass over the past few years -- upgrades became scarcer even for Plats because F buy-ups were being sold hard by CO to anyone with a pulse. If same strategy holds here by Q2 you will see a bunch of random pax in F, 1Ks in E+, Golds and Silvers in the back of the bus.

LOCommish

+1

We'll probably ditch all loyalty and go w/ cheapest most direct which for us is probably JetBlue.

FriendlyTravelor

I still have a lot to learn in FF game and still analyzing options. I look for aisle and E+ was reward for putting up with UA, especially on TATL flights. I consider E+ at checkin = likely seat I don't want and same as Southwest (I'm not completely anti southwest and fly them occasionally where price beats UA by quite a bit; can do more of it). I'm ORD so everybody including employees on every flight I take with UA.

Probably free agent with the occasional UA, will see what's out there instead of just knee jerk UA which had been my wont. TATL however will likely never be UA and while I'm not a huge user, hope they weren't counting on $ from TATL 2Ps in next year's budget.

mre5765

Speaking as a 1K, yes this is a major factor. Often booking 3 weeks out of less, I cannot find a single E+ or exit seat in an aisle or window, and sometimes not even a middle.

Thus the selfish part of me welcomes the shaft 2Ps are getting, but the parts that are idealistic and pragmatic (because someday I will be just a lowly lifetime Gold, and what is done unto Silver can be done to Gold; witness the devaluation of 1P/Gold) do not.