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Home » United Airlines » How Meal Preorders Actually Work On United Airlines
United Airlines

How Meal Preorders Actually Work On United Airlines

Matthew Klint Posted onJuly 19, 2023November 13, 2023 19 Comments

a man serving food to a woman

If you are trying to preorder a meal on an upcoming United Airlines flight, you may find that your selection is “out of stock.” Here’s why.

United Airlines Meal Preorders In Premium Cabins – How It Works

This month, United Airlines expanded its preorder service to widebody international flights. You can now pre-reserve your choice of meal in Polaris Business Class between five days and 24 hours prior to your flight. This can be done on united.com or on the United Airlines app.

However, many have reported failure when attempting to reserve a preferred meal, with certain dishes showing “out of stock.” For example, here are a pair of screenshots from the preorder page:

a menu of a meal
Note the French Toast is “out of stock” cannot be pre-ordered.
a screenshot of a menu
Both the steak and pasta are out of stock on this flight.

The reason for this is the manner in which United has initially chosen to do preorders on Polaris flights.

Preorders can be done in two ways. The ideal way is that passengers have a choice prior to the flight among a list of menu items, then the flight is catered accordingly based on those choices. That, to me, is the very premise of a preorder program. The other way, however, is simply to use preorders to better allocate meals that have already been pre-proportioned and will not change based on the specific demand of the flight. In the early days of its preorder program, this is the path United has chosen.

I will demonstrate this through an example. Say you are flying from Chicago to Frankfurt on United in Polaris business class. There will be four choices on the menu for dinner. Historically, allocations are distributed roughly 40% beef, 25% chicken, 20% fish, and 15% pasta.

Currently, for Polaris preorders, United is capping pre-orders at 60% of a planned stock for a particular menu item. A United memo shared with Live And Let’s Fly explains:

Only 60% of the planned inventory for each item to be boarded on the aircraft will be available for customers. The remaining 40% of the inventory accommodates our GS/1Ks that may not have preordered, allowing them to still receive their first choice.

The good news is that top-tier elites who book last minute are still likely to get their preferred meal choice. The bad news is that those who book early and attempt to preorder may still find themselves eating their second or third choice for dinner.

United hopes to use the analytics gained from preorders to better proportion catering in the future, but as of now, proportions have already been set and will not vary. Thus, it is in your interest to order meals as soon as possible at the five-day mark.

Finally, it should be noted that domestic preorders work according to the other method: a list of options (beyond the standard three menu items) are available and a flight is catered based upon pre-orders. That is why you will not see “sold out” on a domestic flight in the forward cabin.

CONCLUSION

United has finally rolled out preorders on widebody jets years after American Airlines and Delta Air Lines have. While the new program is a positive start, the current system does not influence the actual catering of a specific flight. With menu item proportions already set in advance on international widebody flights, it benefits you to order as early as possible starting five days prior to travel in order to guarantee your preferred choice.

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About Author

Matthew Klint

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he travels more than 200,000 miles by air and has visited more than 135 countries. Working both in the aviation industry and as a travel consultant, Matthew has been featured in major media outlets around the world and uses his Live and Let's Fly blog to share the latest news in the airline industry, commentary on frequent flyer programs, and detailed reports of his worldwide travel.

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19 Comments

  1. Joseph Story Reply
    July 19, 2023 at 12:57 pm

    Stupid. What is the point of a preorder if you can’t choose it? Even American allows you to preorder what you want in their business class.

  2. Scott Reply
    July 19, 2023 at 1:23 pm

    Not sure if this will always happen, but if you have a special meal selected and then choose a preorder meal it will allow the preorder, but at 24 hours the preorder meal is cancelled. This happened to me last week with my kids who had child meals selected when I made the reservation and did pre order meals.

  3. Mark S Reply
    July 19, 2023 at 3:16 pm

    Not sure if this is all true… there are up to 5 pre-order meals (just did BOS – ORD) on Monday, however there are only 2 choices still available on flight.

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      July 19, 2023 at 3:20 pm

      I’m talking about Polaris, but what do you think is not true?

      • Mark S Reply
        July 19, 2023 at 4:30 pm

        Sorry – I was talking domestic. I had similar experience on an international route.

  4. Jan Reply
    July 19, 2023 at 3:39 pm

    I think availability really depends whether the nearest Kroger/Walmart/Publix have the $1.59 Banquet TV dinners in stock.

  5. TA Reply
    July 19, 2023 at 4:08 pm

    Very insightful, but I doubt that UA will actually make future changes to the proportion of types of dishes catered based on preorders. Rumor is that the Kirb intentionally wants too few of the more expensive dishes catered to save on costs.

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      July 19, 2023 at 4:43 pm

      I hope that is not the case – that would very much be a penny-wise, pound-foolish approach.

      • Cade W. Reply
        July 20, 2023 at 11:50 pm

        There is no logic to what you describe anyway. How can United adjust proportions of meals loaded “based on preorders” if they simply show some items as “sold out”? So the pasta is sold out, and I order beef – the system records that as another customer “preferring” beef, when i really wanted the pasta, which I couldn’t select.

        • Matthew Klint Reply
          July 21, 2023 at 12:04 am

          Because flight attendants are still tasked with taking meal orders onboard and confirming first and second choice (which would be implicated if you pre-order something you do not really want in order to avoid getting something even worse), and recording that data into their app.

          • James
            July 21, 2023 at 11:20 am

            Your thought process is flawed. First, if United were collecting data based on in-flight requests they should already have data. Which basically they admitted they do not have.
            Second, what? They can read people’s minds and know they ordered something they did not want to order?

  6. Rich Stateson Reply
    July 21, 2023 at 2:54 am

    Really?! Y’all are this concerned about your meal on a flite? Silly first-world problem!

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      July 21, 2023 at 6:42 am

      Yes, I am concerned.

    • Sal Reply
      April 5, 2024 at 5:23 pm

      The blog is called “Live and Let Fly”. What kind of conversation were you expecting?

  7. BigTee Reply
    July 21, 2023 at 4:58 pm

    So bizzare. I pre-oder all the time on Emirates, KLM, etc. I get what I want. That said, today I was at McDonald’s to order fries for free fries Friday and the menu screen said it was out of fries. I suppose is United Airlines icompeting for the McDonald’s aficionados?

  8. Fred Reply
    July 24, 2023 at 11:40 am

    Conclusion – United are a bunch of mismanaged assbandits.

  9. EWR2TXL Reply
    July 24, 2023 at 5:07 pm

    Remember that all FA crew meals are included in the meal count on Polaris flights and the FAs get to choose from whatever is left, this way not getting a choice is relatively uncommon.

  10. MM Reply
    August 30, 2023 at 1:13 pm

    Have a Polaris flight coming up in four days (IAD-ATH). Got the email yesterday, went to site (four hours after email arrived) — three meals “out of stock (may still be available on flight)” (no “due to popularity” explanation like in the article) and one (pasta) available for selection. Thought it might be a glitch, so went back today. Three meals still “out of stock” and the pasta has disappeared entirely. What’s the point?! Polaris isn’t sold out, by the way,

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      August 30, 2023 at 1:16 pm

      As I wrote, UA holds back a portion on each flight for those unable to pre-order. The system needs work indeed…

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