United Express.

United Express, the regional subcontractors that UA uses for secondary (and, in some cases, primary) airport service on regional jets.

There are definitely more discount inventory buckets available close to departure. About a week and a half I ago I had to book a last-minute ticket home to SEA from ORD because of a family emergency. My travel agent booked me on the next available flight (8am the next morning when it was after 6pm CT) and it booked into Q. My ticket was actually slightly cheaper than the 10-day advance so the net change fee was less than $150. I was, uh, surprised. :eek:

Thank you for answering my question.. :)

Of course, the poster should be aware that not all refares can be done online. Sometimes the system will complain (e.g. if the ticket wasn't originally booked online) or will give erroneous results (e.g. if a paper Type A voucher was used). In those cases, calling is the only option.

On the upside, I completed three phone refares over the last month and all of the vouchers arrived within a week of the respective phone calls! I was flabbergasted!

FWIW, the correct term is badly. It's an adverb modifying the verb "is" (or "is hurting", if that's actually a verb).

I've logged ~ 10k (all within the continental US) in the past ten days. Loads have been approximately 85% or greater on every flight.

Um, yes, I know. I used the colloquial for effect. I do feel safer knowing the grammar police are on the job, however.

Like others, I seriously doubt that the elimination of 500-mile minimums has much to do with anything. Most fliers don't slavishly collect miles (EQMs and RDMs) the way FTers do. Their priorities lie elsewhere.

I do agree that the economy may be having an effect. I'd like to see my retirement (and other) accounts recover too! :(

I've been afraid to look at my 401ks. They were small to begin and probably have pretty well evaporated at this point.

Though I'm not thrilled with elimination of 500-mile minimums, I don't even think about them when I book. I must admit, however, that it would be fair to let me sub-divide 500-mile certs. If UA is only going to credit me 375 miles for the LAX/SFO run, then I should only have to use 375 miles worth of certs.

PTravel, just consider yourself lucky that the flight wasn't cancelled! You know as well as anyone how frequently that route turns ugly.

I would guess that when you fly 16x daily between a city pair, even in peak periods you can run into an empty flight or two. Now, with people traveling less, empty planes are going to become more and more uncommon.

It seems to be a mixed bag these days. In my past few weeks of flying, SFO-LHR was packed, LHR-IAD was reasonably full, but on 938 ORD-LHR two nights ago, C looked about 1/3 full, and Econ + was only about 1/2 full on a 777. I had 21H and J all to myself.

It's not just leasure travelers that are cutting back.

Many companies have implemented travel restrictions for Q4. This is even including limiting travel of Sales! Airlines and hotels are going to be feeling a lot more pain for the rest of the year.

You're welcome.

You cannot determine how an airline is doing by one flight's worth of data. You cannot deduce they are hurting from your flight's light load any more than I can deduce they are NOT hurting by my flight's heavy load the other day SFO-PEK, 747-400 not one single seat anywhere on the plane empty. Nothing in F, C, or Y. Full to the max. I asked the FA, she said that is typical. Always a packed flight.

I think it's random
 

In the last 3 weeks I've flown UA metal LAX-FRA, FRA-LAX, LAX-ORD, and ORD-LAX. All 4 planes were packed to the gills and my upgrade requests didn't even clear!