Nice move by United and this makes them a little more competitive with Southwest. I bet a small portion of awards will be used for business travel, but mainly by the self employed paying their own way… and these people would otherwise find a really cut rate fare probably on another airline anyway.

Oliver – Load factor is revenue passenger miles divided by available seat miles, but if we assume that the same number roughly applies to passengers divided by seats, then there were over 1 million seats that went empty during the month of June.

(7,433,000 passengers/0.85) – 7,433,000 = 1,311,706

Getting more people on their planes? They reported a load factor of 85.9 percent for June! Where are they going to put the extra people?

http://www.united.com/press/detail/0,6862,60706,00.html

Great job by you and United

By dropping the fee they can get more people on the plane using miles and it may not be to just get money on bag fees, food, etc. It’s also a way of getting more mileage travel so they can say “more people redeem miles on UA then any other airline” or “more last minute awards are redeemed on UA then any other airline” or some such boosting.

But we all know it if works out for them, then other airlines will match and then no one will have the edge over anyone else in this area.

Outflyer made a good point that a last minute fee in the paper ticket only world was justified to pay for express delivery of tickets, but with etickets it makes no sense since what fee is there to push buttons to book a trip for tomorrow or six months from now.

Funny that soon after your post, I received the Mileage Plus email announcing the change July 30, but supplied a link that said “Book an award ticket today”. Perhaps a scheme to get me to pay the $100 fee by booking before the promotion starts :)

Jean,

Oh to figure out UA and IAD fares! First, Southwest seldom discounts IAD fares. For almost any WN fare sale, you’ll find small print: :”Travel to/from Washington (Dulles) not included.” Ft. Myers is generally the same.

I wrote WN about this asking for a little “LUV” but got the standard reply airlines give about how they try to fill their planes and generate a little profit for their shareholders. And, of course, they just give all this discounted seats away and stay in business. Surely something Cranky had a hand in writing.

But my suspicion about IAD fares has to do with the Fed’s GSA City-Pair program. I wish some scholars would like at that program and determine if it really benefits the taxpayers, what causes carriers to participate or not participate, and whether the airlines aren’t making a killing off it.

Fares under the current year’s contracts, of which UA is a huge player, particularly to/from IAD, seem a little strange. UA has the IAD contract for most major destinations, with one-way fares of: SEA ($600): SAN (568); LAS (460); PHX (323); DEN (453), although COS is only $236); even little old Norlfolk, VA is $588 and Richmond, VA is $550, from IAD, this is!

Interestingly, UA has the LAX contract for $196, but Virgin has the SFO at $169, with AA having SJC at $597. Thank you Jet Blue, BOS, only $85. And, it’s my understanding, at least for UA, they still add a $50 fuel surcharge for each ticket.

Of course, WN steers clear of all this Fed city-pair contracting. So, anyway, it just seems to me this bidding for the heavy Fed traffic from IAD, with UA in so deep, messes up our every seeing very much discounting at IAD. I don’t really know, but…!

Great news – it always annoyed me since it seems like this last min. redemption fee originated way back before e-tickets — when UA used to justify this kind of fee since they had to “rush” you the paper tickets.

Anyway – its great they dropped it

JK – My guess is that yes, you are asking too much! The Standard award gives last seat availability so that should have a hefty premium. They could be overbooking a flight for you when you use that award so it needs to be expensive.

JT – Well, Southwest is the largest airline in the US for domestic flying, so they are a force to be reckoned with. That being said, I agree completely that comparing the frequent flier programs is absurd, that is, if you’re using your UA miles right. The benefit of Southwest is easy redemption with good availability for domestic routes. For United, it’s all about using miles to get First Class on some exotic foreign carrier to Bali or something like that.

Wyldkrd – I actually was never in favor of fees like these, and that’s probably one reason that I’m not working for an airline these days. I don’t have a problem with some fees, and in fact, baggage fees don’t bother me much. But this is an unavoidable fee that preys on people when they need compassion most. Those people using miles for last minute trips may very well be going to a funeral or having a family emergency. These aren’t business travelers. So it’s a fee that I despised and never would have supported. I’m glad to see it’s gone.

Cranky,
It’s funny knowing that when you were on the “other side” you would have come up with ideas for fees like these. Now you are against them. Nothing like seeing the light!