UAL CFO says MP elites "over entitiled"

The number of pax in each zone matters for W&B. Plus there are a surprising number of folks who turn down the upgrade at the end of boarding once they're settled in, especially if the overheads at the front of the cabin are full. There is definitely effort involved in shuffling that stuff around when the time comes.

Is the effect on W&B material if a flight is full or near-full? I can see a bigger impact on an CR7 than let's say a 738 or A320. If there's an upgrade standby list, you'd know that F will go out full, and it's a matter of where an empty seat will be in Y. If there's both an upgrade standby list and a Y standby list, you may even know the flight's going out full and it's just a question of who will sit where.

And, now that I think about it after having flown WN yesterday, how does WN deal with W&B when they don't even know who is sitting where on the whole plane? I didn't see the FA's making up a seating chart after everyone's boarded, and certainly no time to enter that into a computer. The flight wasn't completely full, maybe 90% so there were pockets of empty seats scattered. Something doesn't sound right about W&B as an excuse not to upgrade pax who boarded the plane. As for people declining, that would be a reason to bring a ranked list on board.

And on non-WN aircraft/airlines people do move around to open seats without notifying the GA or flight crew.

I always do battlefield upgrades but often you need to wait til the last possible official moment (10 minutes prior to schedule departure) to process them since these are given out due to checked in customers failing to board or you are waiting for connecting customers rushing to the gate. After completing the upgrade process at the 9 minute mark you might have standby customers that need to be processed into the open seats and so on. Plus there is always the customer that isn't interested in moving to F for a variety of reason. It's a game of timing, being in control of your flight and so on.

Always refreshing to see the GA side of the story. Thanks!

I know that the discussion has departed from the original post, and I wanted to loop back because I read an article that captured the CFO's comments in context. The WSJ article from today May 24, discussed in another thread, captured the entire quote of the CFO. He did NOT say that all elites are over-entitled http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304451104577390140073664500.html.

Here's the quote to which I am referring:

Well... as stated in the OP of this thread:

"We have certain groups in this (Mileage Plus) program that were over entitled..."

But of course, everyone on FT seemed to feel that they were meant by that statement. I wonder why.

Weirdly, as a Silver, I wasn't offended in the least. Cost/benefit is an issue.

As a 1K, I felt my 1P (Gold) wife was over-entitled. Telling her that got me to live in the dog house for a week

You should have had someone else tell her.

As with most quotes, context is critical. And this one has been taken out of context repeatedly.

Funny thing is, in my four years (3 as CO Plat/UA 1K, and currently UA Plat) as an elite, I've never been offered the opportunity to buy up to first at check-in. I'm simply in the complimentary upgrade queue, and if non-elites purchase the TOD upgrades, I move further down the list and ultimately ride in coach. Not that I'm ENTITLED to an upgrade, but I'd like to be given the SAME OPPORTUNITY to buy-up as non-elites. There are times I would have gladly paid $129 for an upgrade, but wasn't given the opportunity.

I've had 32 flights this year, and I've only missed an upgrade on 4 flights. Of those 4 flights, I only really expected to be upgraded on 1 flight, which was LAX-IAH on Saturday AM. But it was a lie-flat flight, and I was on a K-fare.

Another flight where I had a waitlisted SWU (SFO-PEK) didn't clear, but a helpful UC agent, who understood my curiosity about the upgrade process, wrote down the fares paid by the people ahead of me in the upgrade queue, and they had all paid at least double what I had paid.

I agree, however, that if TOD upgrades are being offered to non-elites, they should be offered to elites as well. However, since it is a buy-up to YBM, it is possible that a non-elite purchased a H-fare, whereas the elite purchased a W-fare. In that case, the non-elite would get a lower price for the TOD because the fare difference would be lower.

What I think is key is that given the same fare of ticket originally purchased, elites and non-elites should be offered the same price to buy-up to YBM.

As UA Insider stated, the goal is to make people pay for the real value of F -- it seems silly for someone to demand/expect an upgrade to F when he/she paid 4 cpm for the ticket.

Perhaps he was alluding to bottom feeders mileage runners.....

That is the model that Air Canada is now gradually implementing.

ALL I EVER ASKED FOR...(sorry for screaming)... well said.

So what is your secret for such a high percentage of upgrades? Do you buy M fares?

No, my CPM average this year is 4.8. Don't know what to tell you. I fly mostly Thursday/Friday nights and Sunday nights.

I am new at this and was quite fearful of how this thread would spool out, but there were many constructive points made and I am glad to have read through them.

mo

Money for the airlines(and most all consumer businesses) is prime but loyalty & solid customer relationship-building also goes a LONG way toward having customers who will spend money continouosly. Only a moderate % can spend top dollars for most flights and even some of those are prudent, wise consumers and want to be selective about how they spend.

Having corporate contracts and a decent product are worth much more.

Corporate contracts beat this issue without much trouble.

To take this back to the beginning, as phrased the comments were certainly accurate, there ARE and WERE over-entitled elites. He isn't specific whom he is referring to in the talk. We've gotten some clarification though since they've made changes to the program and he says at least that the changes addressed this -- things like reducing bonus miles for mid-tier elites and eliminating E+ at booking for Silvers.

Still, it was a really dumb thing to say for an airline that has created a massive trust gap with its customers.

n

Not "an issue" per se!! and it benefits customers and businesses alike for much better then just "decent products" .
May we all UA, customers share in a longterm healthy business relationship.

What are you talking about??

There is no "loyalty" relationship which reasonably is more useful to a company than the corporate contracts and providing a decent product. There just isn't.