2nd Class First Class?
 

I am 1k and flew IAH to SFO on a fully paid F Class ticket this morning. When the FA worked the Cabin asking, about breakfast choices, Cheese Omelet or fruit plate he initially skipped me on row one and asked the other 7 passengers what they wanted first....then when he came back to me he said, "I have a fruit plate for you"...well I can't eat fruit on an empty stomach so I asked him "why did you ask me last about a choice, when I am on row 1?"...he replied " You are ONLY 1k, the others are all GS, so you get whatever is left over"...whoa!

Anybody else have this happen? More evidence that GS is the new 1K and of the continuing dilution of the value of 1k?

Well, meals are taken by status, in which case the FA was correct. This is SOP, and has always benefitted me as a 1K. Am I the only one that has a hard time believing that 7/8 F passengers were UGS?

Sorry for your experience. Just a quick question, tho, assuming the FA was correct, then if you were GS, how would you have wanted the FA to handle the situation?? I think I know how I would. ;)

Best, Dave

On a recent trip NRT-IAD in C, there was no UGS. I was among the first offered meal choice (there were several 1Ks).

Maybe UGS were in F. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

regardless of UA's protocol for taking meal orders, I would expect the FA to say something more eloquent than "...you get what's leftover."

I have never agreed with the taking meals by status. But that's how it is.

Nevertheless, whether you are UGS, 1k, 1P, 2P, 3P, 100Z.... doesn't matter. UA should never tell a passenger, "You are ONLY XXXX."

Why can't UA allow paid F to pre-order their meal choice? There is no excuse for a paid F passenger, even one with no status at all, to feel like a second-class citizen. I think the F/A's answer was, to put it mildly, boorish and rude.

Add me to that list. It's not impossible, just hard to buy.

3 Points here
 

1. It is hard to belive that on a IAH-SFO flight 7/8 pax are UGS. I have been on 772s and 752s on transcons where there have been no UGS pax. And the FA should have been more plite when he said he is all out of the egg dish.

2. I can agree that UGS is almost the new 1K. The main reason IMO 1K is not what it once was is that there are to many of us 1Ks. With over 50,000 1Ks it is hard to provide 1K rooms and other personal services like in the past.

3. The one thing UA needs to do and I have said it before is limit the amount of UGS members. If there is one day 10,000 UGS pax then the value of 1K is almost gone. AND UGS is not as prestige as UA wants it to be.

BOTTOM LINE-

FAs need to be polite to all pax in all cabins regardless of status.

UA needs to limit the amount of UGS pax.

UA needs to make 1Ks feel imortant (after all we did fly over 100,000 miles with UA) and we have choices on what airline we can fly.


Ben

I would love this. It would sure make a lot of people happy. It will also let UA know what dishes are more populer. Then everyone with a Paid F ticket will be able to get his/her meal choice.

I special order my meals, so it doesn't matter that I am a humble 1P; I still get what I want. :)

Like the RCC Matron in FRA who told me last fall "You are just another 1K on a cheap ticket!" :eek:

This reminds me of a discussion I recall about how the IAH market has an unusually high number of UGSs because the big energy companies negotiate deals with the airlines whereby they get granted a chunk of UGS statuses to hand out. So, a lot of people in those companies that need to head out to Asia have UGS even if they individually dont contribute enough revenue to earn it. Given the competition with CO in that market, United is VERY generous in that regard. Sorry to those who have to actually EARN their status in that market.

Hey! I resemble that remark! I never buy anything above V :)

Once I had to buy a Q and I was appalled!

I agree that there are alot of big CEO's in Houston so UA will give them free UGS status. But CO has way more flights from IAH than UA has and I am sure CO has some agrement with these CEO's.

If I were based in IAH I would fly CO over UA for the convenience. I do not like to make a stop or connection unless I have to.

This is unelss i am on a MR :D

Why is this hard to believe? SFO is a major transpac hub, you know. ;) The distributrion of elite pax of various stripes varies... I've cleared p.s. weekday dinner flights as a 2P, and I've not cleared 6:45am Saturday flights where the GA announces there are more UGSs and 1Ks looking for upgrades than available seats. It's a crAApshoot.

Why in the world would UA want to do this? Putting aside for a moment the mystery qualifying criteria, we know that maintaining UGS takes 50K full-fare BIS. If the number of pax that pays this much increases, do you think they should make being a UGS harder? Put differently, if you flew 50K full-fare BIS on UA, would you want to be lumped into the 1K pot? I think not. The "problem" (and whether or not there is a problem is a debatable proposition) is not too many UGS, it's too many 1Ks.

WOW. Very unclassy answer from the FA! :td:

While not getting your meal choice happens, there are good and bad ways for an FA to handle it. This was clearly not a good way.

A few flights back, I thought the way the FAs handled the possibility of someone not getting their meal choice was pretty good--they came around in row order and asked for the meal choice, and then said, "..and if X is not available, is Y OK?" (I must have been one of the few 1ks/GSs on the flight, because the FA only asked for my meal choice, and did not say "is y OK?"--I took that as recognition of my status.)

It at least makes you feel that your order was taken by row priority, that you had some sort of choice, and it also recognizes status.

On a recent Aslaska Air Flight in F, the FA stood at the front and announced, "We have a choice of a chicken salad or a cheeseburger, and we have six of each. Raise your hand if you want the cheeseburger."

And FA will not get fired for this. They can be rude if they choose to, and we the passengers are the last thing they care about.

1. I want UA to limit the amount of UGS for 2 reasons A. I think it should be an exclusive capped "club", B, It is taking away the joy of being 1K.

2. I agree that there are too many 1Ks that is why the 1K rooms are gone and so on and so forth. But if we get too many UGS's then we will have the same problem over and over again.

1) It's airliner food. Domestic First Class food isn't all that special. Heck, International First Class food isn't all that special either. Whether a fruit plate, or a fake egg omellet, this should not be something that should be such a bid deal. If you have dietary concerns, ask for a special meal.

2) I suspect that many 1K, 1P, 2P all benefit in some shape, form or matter from United programs that dilute the value of the MileagePlus program.

Considering that you can now buy your status to a degree at the end of the year, or take apart of double EQM promotions by flying more, this is what is really devaluing the program.


How many people in this program would not qualify or requalify for 1K, 2P or 1P if these programs didn't occur?

That is one way to take meal orders :rolleyes:

That is also how you sepperate UA from AS, F9, etc..

UA should take orders first from all passengers in paid first/business class, then do the status hop. Only United would give a better product to an upgrader than the person who pays for first class.

Anyone traveling in F/A/C/D/Z should be considered UGS for the day.

I understand that you think it should be exclusive, but if UA thinks adding more UGS will lead to a net increase in revenue, you would still tell them not to do it? If making UGS more "exclusive" doesn't add to the bottom line, then why should UA do it? They're in the business of making money, not giving joy.

About the loss of "1K joy," other than not getting your meal choice on this one flight, and I'm just asking here, are you not clearing your upgrades, being connected to stateside CSRs, etc.? What other 1K perks are you not getting because there are too many UGS ahead of you in the pecking order?

Heck no, Y is never okay! :D :p

The fact that you are "fa-friendly" ;) ;) makes me cringe even more when I read this story.

I wish our manifests stated when pax are flying on a full fare F. I think that alone should give them "status" for that flight regarding meal orders. Sometimes an agent will add it to the manifest, but even when they do UAL policy doesn't allow me consider that fact when taking meal orders.:td:

The fa could have handled it better, IMHO.

Different FA's take meal orders different ways. Some Hop, some ask for 1st and 2nd choices. I know the latter of the 2 is policy. So If a GA writes Full Fare you could ask that person first. It is just the right thing to do. Chances are no one will find out about it, and if the GA wrote Full Fare on the manifast that is why He/She did it.

1. If UA can make more money by adding more UGS i am all for it. For example if I were a Travel Coordinator for lets say Nike and UA gave me UGS, that i like becuse then I would be more inclined to book Nike Employes on UA and then therefore UA makes more money .But If they do it just because someone flys more then enough to be a 1K then I dont like it. That is why we have the 300,000 choices award.

2. My upgrades have been clearing but that does not mean the most to me. I like when UA staff gives me great service weather it is for a misconnect or irropps. I like being recognized as a loyal flyer to UA. After all only one flight i took last year was not on UA.

Ben

7 of the 8 were either Asian Executives or Houston Energy Exec's whose company endows them with GS.....I am very "FA Friendly" at least as sympathizing with their UAL plight (screw-job)...but really that was sooooo rude to say I get what is left over.....he then wanted to charge me for a "Mini Meal" Snack Box....I protested...the FA in the back told the purser that it was standard to comp. a box to a 1st that does not like the meal choice....oh well...another day in the once friendlier skies!

Also, UAL only has 1 IAH - SFO per day...it is always packed...feeding the very hot asian routes for business travel...I fly the route back and forth a lot...UAL should expand capacity on the line by putting in bigger equipment or adding a flight...I know this is unlikely as UAL really thinks of this flight logistically as a repositioning flight and IAH-SFO as not important..but believe me IAH-SFO is really feeding the asian lines....everyone except me was connecting to Asia.

And I do earn my status on my own nickel...

So what if all 8 were GS, would one of them get the fruit plate and be told tough luck that's all that's left?

Well, that is the only option. This happens on pretty much all flights, although in a different form. On a 757 where you have 12 of each meal, the cutoff of choices could be with a 2P. That being said, it could be that one 2P gets lucky and gets his/her choice, while another is left with whatever. Lots of times they just go by whoever is closer then.

To those that say meal choices should first be given to paid F passengers: I agree in general, but where do you draw the line? Does discounted F count? Does a QUAUP count? Does a standard F award count? Hard to draw any definite line, IMO.

Great idea, but where does it stop? The way that most UGS pax get and stay at that level is by buying full fare tickets. So now what if all 8 or 7/8 pax in F are "paying F" customers? Does it now depend 100% on fare paid? The person with the highest fare gets the meal? So now what do you do if two people paid the same amount? Go back to status? If so, we're back to where we started.

I can only speak for myself, but every time I've been in F this year, I've paid for it with either A or F tickets. However, unless there is something I REALLY don't like, I'll tell the FA "I'd like the XXX, but I'll take anything if you are short of XXX." Believe it or not, I've been taken up on my offer to switch meals more as a UGS then a 1K. I do it partly to be nice, but on the other hand, I really don’t care what I eat – it’s not like we are talking about fine dining here. Anything I get is better then what they are serving in the back. ;)

ps - this is usually a good way to score an extra cookie or extra nuts… Usually, the FAs are VERY nice to you just for offering, even if you do get your first choice.

If FAs have to figure it out manually, I agree it would be a problem. But there's no reason why the GA can't generate a "ranking" of F pax the same way they rank pax for upgrades, standby, etc. If the computer is doing the work, they make the algorithm as complicated as they want.... In the end, the FA either (a) takes meal preferences from pax in rank order or (b) takes orders straight down the line, then sorts things out in the galley.

Of course, this would lead to a new species of threads on this board:

"Should a 1K QUAUPs meal choice come before a UGS's YUA choice?"

"Why did a GM W-fare come before the 1P L-fare?"

"How much compensation is coming to me: I'm a 1K on a B fare, but the 2P on a M fare swiped my open face turkey sandwich!!!!!!!"

:rolleyes: ;)

Being ONLY 1K myself, your 2nd point sounds good, but I don't think UA will agree. UGS members theoretically, bring the big bucks so in turn having more of them is probably better for their own bottom line ;)

In any case, perhaps if the OP purchased a full fare, oops, I forgot, he was competing with UGS members who are likely in full fare anyways so he would still get the fruit plate. My main point is that unfortunately, there will not be a first choice all the time for everybody. Somebody will be 'forced' with either an omelette or fruit plate. That's simply how it is, and in this flight it had to be you. I'm sure as a 1K, your other flights, 99% of the time will satisfy you with your first choice.

But I agree, the FA presented the only option for you in a rather rude statement. Instead, the FA should have been very apologetic to say the least :td: .

Looking for clarification. Are you 100% sure that all of the facts presented here are true (Paid for 1st, and 1K?)

Is it possible that you were on a discounted fare and upgraded?

whether or not taking meal orders only by status benefits me (it usually does in F on the transpacs, but it certainly wouldn't if i were sitting with 7 UGS pax!), i think it's wrong.

priority for meals should be similar to priority for upgrades... yes, status should be a factor, but so should fare class.

Whatever the final order should be, it is classless to skip around premium cabin pax to take meal orders. Take the meal choices sequentially, assign meals based on preference and order rules in the galley, and go back out and get second choices to those pax that do not get their first choice.

IMO, the meal order factors should go by paid COS, status, booking class.

EXACTLY! I have no clue why UA does it the way they do so often, but this really makes more sense! So demeaning, IMO, to just around.

I don't think it should be that complex. While I can see that full fare F passengers should be treated properly, I have a feeling that showing whether someone is upgraded or whatever would lead to even more of a bad attitude by FA's. For example, "Oh, what does this upgrader want now?" or something like that. Just gives FA's more reason for bad service.

Not much point in paying all that $$$ to UA for no choice of food, is there?