United Is Introducing New Amenities In Transcon Business Class & Economy Plus

When are you posting the Residence review?

While I like the changes to Econ Plus, this is the beginning of the end of free upgrades to E+. No way they keep it going. Also frees up people from being able to upgrade from regular economy to first class.
While it's a nice feature, it's just cutting elite benefits for the future. Which is fine now that I cut my elite ties with them.

this should've been the perfect opportunity to include LAX-BOS in that list, even at 2x daily.

You guys really hate United with a passion. Criticism even when they do something nice for coming passengers.

There is no basis for speculating that they will exclude elite upgrades to economy plus. Delta has long offered free booze and food in comfort plus, which is still available to elites. Free food and wine is not that expensive -- and they have a huge number of economy plus seats on each plane. Transcons are almost always sold out, so they would have to op-up a bunch of elites anyway. I don't think their goal is to literally provide no benefits to elites, since they do get a lot of people to book with them through elite benefits.

As a longtime UA 1K I have always felt that the free upgrade program is one of the worst things that has happened to the domestic carriers...When UA started it, I said to all of my business partners who flew UA, "watch, the service/amenity cuts are going to come right along with this"...That is exactly what happened...Now those same business partners say, "well, we would never use miles or pay for an upgrade, look how bad the service is"...

Free upgrade = less service/amenities...Enhanced service = no free upgrade...Free upgrade = less service/amenities...Enhanced service = no free upgrade...

Does anyone else realize the pattern here...??? It's not rocket science...

@ John - you do know that for Delta, only Diamond and Platinum can into Comfort+ right away right ? Gold you have to wait til 72 hours to departure and silver you have to wait til 24 hours to departure. Currently UA 1K, platinum and gold can get E+ immediately at booking, so how is that the same to compare ?

Lucky, for every comment you receive asking about your Residence Review, I would wait an additional day.

Unlike Delta, which has had this premium service for about five years, United didn't announce its new premium service alongside any retrofitting, renovation or new aircraft. To me, that's notable. This is basically lipstick on a pig. It isn't even Polaris. It's at best Polaris-inspired. By contrast, Delta's flagship Delta One business-class from JFK-LAX is basically the same product--hard and soft--as LAX-HND.

The ONLY reason why I still fly United is the access to E+. If that is taken away I'm out. I don't care about free meals.

@ ORDnHKG -- Based on your own description, Delta's economy comfort policy is identical to United's economy plus policy for every elite tier except gold. That seems like a pretty fair comparison. Indeed the fact that the policies are so close seems to support the view that United is probably going to want its program to essentially match what Delta does (as they have matched so many other Delta moves recently). So if Delta's serving free alcohol in economy comfort and offering those seats to elite for free, United probably will do the same.

To the extent your concern is that United golds will be changed from "confirmed at booking" for economy plus to "upgraded at T-72" for economy plus (to exactly match Delta's policy), that seems like a pretty minor change. United has way more economy plus seats, percentage wise, than Delta does -- so even at T-72, golds would be virtually guaranteed to get an economy plus seat, probably even an aisle or window. For that reason, moreover, I wouldn't expect United to change their policy for golds to match Delta's. A United exec who I know well explained to me that the only reason United added a rule that silvers can get economy plus only at T-24 was because some higher-tier elites complained that they couldn't get economy plus seats when they made close-in bookings because all the economy plus seats were gone several days before departure. United has no incentive to make a similar change for gold because there's more than enough economy plus seats for golds and all higher elites to get them -- which is different than Delta, which has way fewer comfort plus seats. As it is United's E- seats are often sold out well before departure while tons of E+ seats are unsold, so United regularly has to op-up non-elites to E+ at the gate. If they have to give away E+ seats for free they'd much prefer to give those out to a gold member as a perk that doesn't cost them much, rather than give them out to a general member for nothing.

The changes United is making to the soft product won't result in any change to the percentage of economy plus seats, so there's no reason to imagine that those changes would change United's policy of elite upgrades. If anything transcon routes are among the most sold out, where E- is often gone and they have to do op-ups at the gate a lot. It makes no sense to change the policy so that general members would get a bunch of op-ups in those routes rather than giving those seats to elites.

That's why I think Lucky's idle speculation in this post reflects an anti-United bias. Yes, they've had their share of problems -- but there's really no basis to leap to the conclusion that every small improvement must be part of some elaborate scheme to screw over their elites later. They are a profit-maximizing business so they may make changes when they need to do so to maximize shareholder returns -- but they don't have any reason to torture heir elites just for the fun of it (quite the contrary).

I literally laughed out loud when then said it would be " akin to flying from the east coast to Europe,"

Am I the only one who, yes, wants to see the Residence review, but is holding on much tighter for the Virgin Australia review?

As a former Northwest employee I remember a time when coach class was all coach no such thing as premium economy. These airlines today are garbage and have poor services with little leg room and hardly any decline with seats. TWA had the best Transcontinental service too with hot food for EVERYONE in board. Sad state of times in Airline life today IMO.

@Eric: The reality, however, is flying is no longer a big deal for most people. It's a commodity that takes you from Point A to Point C generally via Point B. Flights are shorter. There's less need for enhanced service and enhanced meals to keep passengers occupied because passengers mostly now have access to internet, movies, TV and radio while in-flight. I agree that seats are worse, planes are more crowded, and service is somewhat worse on most domestic flights but I don't necessarily think a hot meal for the sake of a hot meal is actually an enhancement, especially if the food is crappy. What irks me, however, is not giving customers a choice to pre-order a hot meal if they want one. Air Berlin does this well.