As far as I am concerned, United botched the official rollout of its premium economy product on premium transcontinental routes. It’s all about communication…
Over the weekend, United began selling Premium Plus seats on select flights between Newark and San Francisco/Los Angeles. The Boeing 787-10 features Premium Plus on all aircraft, which offer a wider seat with more legroom and recline. Some 777-200s on the route feature a retrofitted cabin with Premium Plus as well. United uses a mix of 757s, 777s, and 787s on premium transcontinental routes.
Up until now, MileagePlus elite members could reserve these seats as if they were EconomyPlus seats; at time of booking for Premier Golds and above and during check-in for Premier Silvers. Service was identical to EconomyPlus, which included a free meal and alcohol.
But now United is selling Premium Plus seats as a separate class of service. Originally, this transition occurred on October 1, 2019 (i.e., three days notice). As of this morning, it now appears the transition to a separate cabin will occur on November 1, 2019. Fares are averaging about $400 each way for advance purchase.
Small Problem: What Can Passengers Expect?
Ok, so United will now charge a premium for Premium Plus. That’s reasonable. But what will Premium Plus include? Up until now, United has not formally announced domestic Premium Plus service nor indicated what kind of service passengers can expect.
I reached out to United for clarification and was told transcontinental Premium Plus customers will receive:
- At The Airport
- Premier Access check-in and priority boarding
- Two standard checked bags
- Onboard
- More spacious seats with additional legroom, recline and width
- Larger inflight entertainment monitors (up to 13 inches)
- An elevated dining experience with complimentary alcoholic beverages
One perk caught my eye. What does an “elevated dining experience” actually mean? I’ve asked United for clarification and will update this story when that information is provided.
What About Passengers Who Already Had Seats Reserved?
Many passengers, some who had booked months in advance, found themselves suddenly booted out of their Premium Plus seats. These were not just elite members who pre-reserved the seats, but non-status passengers who had paid a premium to reserve specific seats in the Premium Plus cabin.
On Saturday, all seat assignments in Premium Plus after October 1st were wiped away. Many ended up in “deep coach” since the EconomyPlus cabin is small on these aircraft and all the seats were taken.
Today, customers traveling in October were given a reprieve and can now move back to EconomyPlus. But those traveling on or after November 1st will no longer have free access to Premium Plus seats.
United told me:
When we changed the schedule to a three-cabin aircraft, customers were moved to open Economy Plus seats. For flights in October, we worked to move customers who had originally selected a Premium Plus seat, back into Premium Plus as a courtesy. For flights after October, customers will be able to book available Economy Plus seats which is consistent with the experience most of these customers are expecting.
Reasonable But Unnecessary
United’s decision is reasonable, but I’d call it unnecessary…a penny-wise, pound-foolish approach. Why alienate your elite members with no notice, especially when many of them cannot even book EconomyPlus seats now (because the cabin is full)?
Of course United has a right to charge more for these superior seats. But why not start charging from a certain date and not go back to retroactively punish those who took advantage of what they were offered with no disclaimer that the seats were not guaranteed.
Those who paid for EconomyPlus seats in the Premium Plus cabin should be offered a refund.
CONCLUSION
With the rollout of Premium Plus as a separate cabin, passengers can expect a better meal and other perks. But United should do the right thing and allow passengers who had Premium Plus seat assignments, even several months in the future, to keep them. It should also make very clear the specifics of the new domestic class of service.
> Review: United 777-200 Premium Plus
image: United
Don’t get your hopes up on the meal. My “elevated dining experience” on a transatlantic flight was the food was identical to coach, just that it was served in a dish as opposed to a plastic container.
That’s not quite true. The Premium Plus meals are akin to domestic first class meals (both presentation and choices).
I just flew the “Premium Plus” section of the 787-10 LAX-EWR flight. What a total disappointment! First, it was sold to me as a “Business” upgrade, then switched last minute to Premium Plus class. Ultimately, what I got was a seat upgrade. Service is the same as economy plus, with the same terrible blue blanket, no pillow, amenity kit or anything else. Meal was exactly the same as Economy Plus, free breakfast on the same disposable containers as everyone else. Buyer beware! United is selling this as a Business class upgrade and giving you a seat upgrade at best. AVOID this unless you want to pay a lot more for a little more.
I like the “deep coach” !
I went with United over JetBlue or delta because an agent told me if I pay $120 extra I can select a seat in E+ or P+ on the 787 to Newark. At no time did they say they might begin to class this as a new cabin and kick me out.
So I bought the slightly higher fare on UA. Went with EWR over JFK as a seat in PE sure sweetened the deal
Now they kick me outta that seat
I tweeted UA and the told me “unfortunately we can’t honor your seat in P+” so I told them “unfortunately I can’t honor my purchase on UA”
I ended up getting my $120 refunded.
But still. It’s left a bad taste .if they have no goodwill I have either . If they let me stay in the seat they sold me next trip I would possibly pay up to P+ again, appreciative of their gesture
After how they handled this – I’ll take my business to JetBlue or delta
United makes an extra $400 selling my seat again but pisses off someone who flies 75,000 miles a year
Russell,
I think you are 100% right and I would feel the same way. Do yourself a favor and go to DL. They are a far superior airline.
Yeah perfect marketing opportunity they screwed up.
Imagine if you got an email saying your E+ was upgraded to P+.
It really makes you wonder if the upper management at UA understands at all what it means to be a customer. Their policies and the way they do business really makes you scratch your head sometimes. From the outside it just doesn’t seem like they are particularly good at anything. They don’t rank highly in any categories, certainly not passenger satisfaction anyway.
Scott Kirby is great at counting pennies but terrible at putting himself in the shoes of the customer. This makes for a wildly random experience on United, since he doesn’t understand what makes loyal customers loyal. Matthew is a die hard United guy, so if he calls this botched, you know that non-fans are using much harsher words.
United botched the rollout? No! Say it ain’t so!
Given the fact that the wording for “elevated dining experience” is similar to the meal description for long-haul PP flights, I am guessing that instead of 4 course meal in business with 3 main course choices and ice cream sundae cart, transcon PP will receive a similar meal as standard domestic first flights (salad, 2 main course choices, cake, bread).
I have a flight on Oct 2nd and was always booked in Premium Plus, even after the initial change to three class config. They left me in Premium Plus until yesterday when they booted me to 31L. Yet kept an upgrade cert.
Nobody has been able to help by phone.
I am the perfect target audience for this., I usually fly paid J but balk at paying the often 5k or more airlines want for transcons when I fly with my nine year old son. I had a flight to nyc I needed to book for oct 2 and instead of booking a narrow body J ticket on american routing through ord I paid more and took a less ideal flight time to be able to fly this seat. I am not an elite so I paid for my seat selection at time of booking, so imagine my surprise when I read lucky article and double checked my reservation. Sure enough I was moved to regular economy. That began three days of calling customer service. I have now had my seat selection revoked four times and had to pay a four hundred dollar premium to secure seats I already paid to reserve. Contrast this with delta, with whom I’m flying an identical product to Atlanta : I booked my seat months ago and it has not changed at all. United has completely alienated me for no reason to the point where I will no longer fly them. At this point I’ve paid 2500 for my son and I to fly an extra legroom seat to ewr when I could have booked the same product for about 800 and flown into nyc.
I was also booted out of P+ for my upcoming November flight… as a 1K with a GPU requested. The CS email I received literally said that I should have known I was purchasing an Economy seat and their is nothing they can (will) do for me. Don’t get me started on the hour-long conversation had with 1K.
United’s reciprocation for my loyalty is a joke (on me). Time to take my 3MM and move on.
This. So much this.
You had me with United + Botched. This airlines continues to strive head-head with American as being one of the worst customer friendly airlines in the US. I say this as a former Premier 1K for many years and even closing in on 1M miles. Best thing I ever did was only focus on Gold annually and fly with better choices whenever possible.
I have made the same decision. I am a Million Miler almost two million. When UA bumped the fee up from basic economy from $20 to $35 to use my “loyalty” benefits, I decided to not fly UA except only when I had to and decided to accept my lifetime gold status. UA has continued to erode the benefits. I was platinum for the last 5-6 years. But no more. Choices for me are limited because UA has 75% of the slots at EWR.
I was global service for 8 years, obsessively chasing united flights even when better option was available. Then I had to move oversea and realized that I could get better service for half the price without agonizing every year to know whether I would make the cut and qualify for… what exactly? the petty pleasure of pushing aside all the 1Ks at boarding time and get in my seat before them. And why is it that a transatlantic D fare on United runs for about USD7000 while you get it for less than USD4000 on most European airlines
I think your spot on Matthew. United should have just left existing reservations alone. Especially since a large number of the people they are screwing are likely to be the kinds of customers that they value the most.
This story also speaks to the unequal and unfair balance of power between and airline and it’s customers. When you make a mistake you have to eat it. When they make a mistake they have virtually unlimited rights to do what they will. In this case we have people who bought a certain product at a certain price. Now they are being told that because the airline wants to make changes they can’t have the product they paid for. In any other industry you’d be entitled to a full refund when something like this happens.
We have earned over a million miles on competitor airlines and chose to give United our core business. Especially overseas travel. why? Upgrades to premium seating. Unfortunately United will not be a million mile airline for us. The airline has taken away the only advantage to putting up with the misery of flying tiny uncomfortable aircraft on long routes to get the occasional upgrade on larger aircraft. Not to mention consistently charging slightly higher fares than competitors for the routes we often fly. Not to mention the persistent feeling that the flight attendants are unhappy with their jobs. It’s also very likely we’ll not need the costly annual fee United sponsored credit card either. Dear United: this decision is indeed unwise.
My P+ seat got moved to an E- seat on a January EWR-SFO flight on the 787-10. It was an award ticket. UA as expected threw their hands up in the air and said that they couldn’t do anything for me. I only booked this to try to 787-10. I ended up refunding my miles and booking my preferred DL JFK-SFO.
Good grief, who is running the show at United?…….What do they do just hand over these decisions to recent graduates interning at United until they can go onto other companies and mess them up. Totally out of touch with customer service. All they (United) do is throw out tons of psychobabel.
“For flights after October, customers will be able to book available Economy Plus seats which is consistent with the experience most of these customers are expecting” – consistency with the experience most of these customers are expecting ??? How can they have expectations when you (United) keep pulling the rug out from under them and dumbing everything down to anything but your perceived “Disney” “experience”.
I have been flying to Asia for 15 plus years. I fly EVA due to the Premium Economy class that they have had. It essentially is what United is trying to do. The template has existed for decades. All they had to do was duplicate it, yet they failed. I flew this new class with United to Europe and the service and food was no better than economy. With EVA, they have dedicated staff to your class. You receive very good service and attention. With United, you are almost treated as an after thought. Big miss for something that should have been simple. Fly EVA if you are going to Asia. They are star alliance.
Fly BA to London and beyond. It’s closest to Pan Am for service and safety.
Question – is there currently (for previous existing flights) any distinction between E+ and Premium Plus? The seat map shows them all as E+. Is it just a matter of knowing on these particular layout 777-200 flights, that the rows with 2-4-2 are premium. Or are there flights where these are still E+ seats. Asking because I just checked in and booked 2 seats in what I think is P+
No difference shown on website if Premium Plus not sold as a separate cabin. Just look for 2-4-2 instead of 3-4-3.
Awesome – thanks for the info, Matthew. It looks like I’m in it for my flight tomorrow. Last question – can I expect any kind of swag (saks fifth, cowshed, etc)? less than Polaris but more than E+?
That’s a good question – United still has not given us precise details on what to expect. My guess is no, at least not tomorrow. But do let me know after your flight.
I had a bad experience with this transition. I booked my LAX flights back in August for early Nov. At the time of booking I was able to book premium plus as I had done several other times prior. When I noticed the change this morning I had the UA Customer service tell I got lucky with a system glitch, he then proceeded to be rude and he hang up on me. When I called back I got a supervisor they told me that is was my fault I booked a window and aisle, rather then owning up to the issue they tried to lie there way out of the issue. They used we reconfigured the plan, which they did not we picked these routes specifically for the premium plus seating. United once again managed to screw this up. They reassigned my seats so me my wife two kids(5 and 3) are not separated for the flight. The second lie was they said they would refund me for moving up to economy plus this included 4 charges, well I am gold and allow myself + 1 to get to economy plus so if I did not move up to premium plus why did they have to refund me for four upgrades.
I just had the exact same conversation on the 1K helpline. The call was eventually transferred to a supervisor who, tried to repeatedly and rudely defend the practice by using the plane reconfiguration and seats are not guaranteed excuses without ever acknowledging the real issue – shifting confirmed economy premium seats into economy plus. I understand what United is trying to do but I was foolishly expecting them to treat their loyal customers with a bit more consideration and respect by owning up to it and offer some sort of compromise rather than accusing customers of making it all up.
I fly regularly to/from London and always pick United even though not always cheapest option. Gold member for a while. Just found out this bait and switch going on for my flight to London tonight – not sure what seat I am now going to get. I’ve noticed the meal quality has slowly declined over the last 3 years and now this. Will be looking to use BA, Virgin, American as better options for now.