SanDiego1K

Today AA announced a new fee in addition to use of miles in order to upgrade international fares.

You can find the discussion in the AA forum.

Let's hope that UA doesn't decide "monkey see, monkey do". I would argue that UA already does this in a more discrete way. AA has allowed mileage upgrades from rock bottom fare. UA requires the purchase of H fares for mileage upgrades. Still, I feel some angst as to whether UA will feel this is an opportunity to get more from the frequent flyer.

transpac

In that thread I found this interesting nugget:

A new J cabin? Has this been mentioned before?

Elimination of F on three-class 767-300's? Did I miss this?

And what is this "welfare state"? This sounds like 'avek-speak' to me?

mahasamatman

If UA offered to upgrade V and W fares for $250 + mileage, I think that would be great! So I guess I agree with your double-negative for UA to "NOT, NOT follow AA" on these deep discount fares.

FlyerTim

1. A new United Business cabin (perhaps using the p.s. F seat as a starting point) has long been rumored, and IMHO will be part of any United bankruptcy emergence international biz strategy.

2. IMHO, United will likely eliminate the 763 F cabin when finances permit. It is uncompetitive with most carriers' upgraded F offerings (and even UA's own First Suite), and more importantly, does not sell very well. Placing the First Suite in the 763 is unfortunately not a viable option due to inability to be certified on 767s.

3. Actually, its more like the prevailing North American airline industry rationale. If you look closely in the AA thread, I pointed out that AA was alone amongst North American 2-cabin longhaul carriers in offering mileage upgrades from deep discount Economy fares without an additional surcharge. Everyone else has either banned deep-discount upgrades or else instituted surcharges.

LHR Tim

Why can't UA get the suite on the 763? BA manage with their suites.

UNITED959

Well, if I were over at UA's marketing communications department, and knew for certain that UA would not be playing "monkey see, monkey do," I would certainly be working on a news release about how UA MP offers a flexible int'l upgrade program and does not have surcharges.

chicagorich

Unfortunately, the airlines have shown the tendency of being willing to adopt a "bad news" change once a competitor announces a similar change first.

The non-refundable fares and ticket change fees followed that sort of process.

CO announced changes to its ff program in September with higher upgrade fees. Now American is following suit with its own ff program changes to be in line with CO.

If the past is an indicator, UA will probably follow suit with some type of change in their ff program to bring itself in line with AA and CO.

izzik

Euw, why would UA drag itself down like that?

I think UA will not change a bit. H fares are always not priced as deep discount.. and so it's not like they were giving it away easy like AA was doing for so long.

Axey

That didn't take long. Well done, mods.

mcgahat

I think it is a negative on the AA side as you are taking something away from flyers at AA. Now United I think is the opposit, adding the ability to pay $250 and miles on cheap fares would be giving additional choices to flyers of UA that they dont currently have. The difference between an upgradable fare using miles in my experience has been around that amount most of the time anyway so it technically could be a wash but with the right marketing UA could push the fact they are giving flyers of UA more choices than they had before. We all like having more choices right? They would of course have to keep the current policy of no charge for using miles on the fares they have now (H and above I think).

I dont think it would be a bad thing other than it could be a slippery path leading to charging a "fee" for SWU usage or even a smaller fee for H fares and above (minus B and Y probably) as well.

ExtrAAordinaire

I'd just like to caution that AA had not yet made an official announcement. We are still awaiting the details of this new scheme.

UA_Flyer

That's exactly what I thought when reading the original post. UA's deep discount fares ( V, W, Q, S, T) are not upgradable. Only H, M, B, Y are. In substance it is more of AA following UA, not the other way around.

pb9997

Where was this Flyertim wrong ? Why was he or she banned ? His post seems pretty average with rational thoughts... This is my first...

What did I miss ??????

Indurain

If UA "follows" by making VWQST upgradable with miles (for a fee), then that may not be a bad thing. However, the fear is that UA will mess something up when they make changes to the rules, as history have shown us. The other fear is that, with a finite number of seats (especially the relatively small C section on a 777 compared to a 744), will this change increase the number of people upgrading such as to tarnish my so-far stellar upgrade record?

On the other hand, there are also plenty of times when UA chose not to follow others, like the recent series of fuel surcharges that came and went, came and went. Also, Economy Plus is still available fleetwide even though AA is backing out of MRTC, and nobody else has anything similar. So I give them some credit, not much, but some.

JonNYC

You missed what pretty much everybody missed-- except for me of course ( )(and transpac , above) that that was avek00 in his newest reincarnation.