RUMOR: US Considering Charging Elites for Choice Seats?

[Dont call me Shirley]

could the possibly think up more ways to annoy and alienate the VFFs?

actually, I don't want to know the answer to that question!

 

[Art at ISP]

Let's take a somewhat analytical look at the issue. If you have to balance the ancillary revenue (read fees) part of the equation with the fact that Preferred members contribute an inordinate percentage of the overall revenue pie, I think it's a gamble to even consider charging a high value Preferred member (perhaps Gold and above) for ANY seat on the airplane. The core issue is that this is consistent with US's recent history of walking past dollars to pick up nickels. Apparently they have decided that it is more important to them to pick up a couple of hundred dollars extra revenue per flight than to alienate a customer who spends $10,000 or more with them per year. They tried this before with the aborted drink charges, and had to reverse course, and in my opinion, they will reverse course on this one eventually as well.

The fundamental core problem remains....fix the fares. Stop selling the majority of your seats below the cost of providing the service. This applies to ALL airlines. Who knows? Maybe re-regulation WOULD help airlines become profitable again. If your costs remain significantly higher than your competitors, address THAT issue and stop coming to the trough to nickel and dime your customers. This race to the bottom has to end somewhere other than a bankruptcy court. Is the extra few hundred worth the bad will you create? In this case, apparently so....

Again, my reaction to this scheme would be the same REGARDLESS of which airline tried it....unfortunately in this case US is treading where no one has tread before, and I fear it might be a costly error in judgement.....time will tell.

 

[SS255]

According to the posts on Flyertalk, the Choice Seats are the aisle seats and window seats close to the front, with the middle seats in those rows being "Preferred" seats. Some rows behind the Choice Seats rows are designated as Preferred rows only. (I believe the exception to this is the 767, where the Preferred rows are in front of the Choice rows, but I have not personally looked at the seat maps.)

Soooooo.......my conclusion is that US would rather pick up $5 here and there from somebody on a $98 ticket and stick the Preferred who books at the last minute and pays the most amount of money in the middle seat.

The spin is that Choice Seats are now only available for purchase at check-in time, whereas I think but cannot recall for certain that they were previously available for purchase at any time.

Here is my real problem with this change: THEY ARE CHARGING PREFERRED'S FOR CHOICE SEATS!!!! The way to roll out this change is to announce that these seats are available for elites at any time, at no charge. I lost my elite status with US, so this change actually benefits me, because now I can book at the 24-hour mark and snag an aisle seat close to the front for what amounts to peanuts on top of my $298 ticket, while the poor CP who paid $1,800 for his ticket sits in the middle seat next to me. But I am still outraged, because it's stupidity like this which caused me to status match to CO in the first place. (Note that I would have been a CP on US this year had I not accrued 124K+ EQM's to CO instead.)

US.......what the heck are you thinking? Do you still want to be in business a year from now? PLEASE SEND A RETRACTION AND TELL YOUR ELITES THAT THERE WAS A TYPO IN THE ANNOUNCEMENT!!!! Otherwise, you will be putting 32,000 very good and innocent people out of work sooner rather than later.

 

[jerseyfinn]

To give you access in advance to the best seats in Coach, we're reserving select seats in front, plus the exit rows, exclusively for Preferred members. When you book, you won't have to compete with other passengers for a limited number of Choice Seats.

Well here's an e-mail I got today from US Air. Doesn't sound like there's a problem to me if one is saying that US is going to nickel and dime their elites. Tadjr reads his memos and I read my e mail.

Barry

 

[CLTUSCaptive]

Well, I'll tell you this after a 4 day- I am over on every flight rows 9-12 getting on first just making a disaster out of the boarding. They each have two huge bags. Take up all the overheads. Then leave 50+ ppl on the jetway SCREAMING at me at the boarding door. It's out of control. Between the credit card boarding priority and the preferreds and what not, it just is horrible. Back to front. We can't offer all this priority BS when it creates a flight delay.

Absolutely right, Beachboy, and let me tell you from a passenger's perspective it really sucks too. As an SP I board in Zone 2, and if you carry on your luggage (who doesn't now?) you have the way fun choice of being rude and obnoxious, elbowing your way towards the front of the teeming herd, crowding the boarding door and/or jumping the Zone 1 , or not having anywhere for your luggage. Flying out of CLT on a Monday morning, probably 3/4 of the plane is Zone 1 or 2 and the boarding process is just an every man for himself Chinese fire drill. Does anyone in Tempe even know this is happening?

 

[SparrowHawk]

Tempe KNOWS EVERYTHING! Ask them they'll tell you

 

[Art at ISP]

Well here's an e-mail I got today from US Air. Doesn't sound like there's a problem to me if one is saying that US is going to nickel and dime their elites. Tadjr reads his memos and I read my e mail.

Barry

Barry,

That email is misleading. It is taunting the benefit of Preferred Seats without mentioning that the best of what were those seats have been made Choice Seats and that if Preferred members want one of those seats they have to pay also.

The bottom line is that this is a further devaluation of Dividend Miles Preferred membership, the Preferreds who are still left for the most part are very upset, and I think the law of unintended consequences will rear its head here....another defection of customers to other airlines.

And let me be clear--I would react the same way to ANY carrier who tried such an ill advised move....it is not my fault that US has singlehandedly led the race to the bottom in terms of elite benefits and customer service.

 

[john john]

Absolutely right, Beachboy, and let me tell you from a passenger's perspective it really sucks too. As an SP I board in Zone 2, and if you carry on your luggage (who doesn't now?) you have the way fun choice of being rude and obnoxious, elbowing your way towards the front of the teeming herd, crowding the boarding door and/or jumping the Zone 1 , or not having anywhere for your luggage. Flying out of CLT on a Monday morning, probably 3/4 of the plane is Zone 1 or 2 and the boarding process is just an every man for himself Chinese fire drill. Does anyone in Tempe even know this is happening?

The choice seat program began allowing non-elite the option to purchase a preferred seat within 24 hrs of departure. This fee was $5-30 depending on market and length of flight. With the old policy it was possible that an elite member would buy a ticket with little to no advance purchase and have no preferred seat available. The new program designates preferred and choice seats seperately and no longer can a nonelite flyer be assigned a preferred seat. The choice seats remain available to purchase for the same fee to any passenger beginning 24 hrs prior to departure during web-checkin or at the ticket counter.

Management knows the boarding process is prioritized and that it gets ugly towards the end of the boarding process they are the creator of it. Management wants passengers to pay to board early and get a better seat and room for their carryons is all about a better seat and room for your carryons. The end result is insensitive intensive

 

[SS255]

I had a great crew on LAX-CLT last Saturday: They were very on top of the overhead bin situation, and as soon as the bins filled up, the FA in the back alerted the FA towards the front of Y, who alerted the FA at the front.......and the next thing you knew, everybody else who boarded did so with just their small under-the-seat bags.

The key to solving the overhead bin problem is for the crew to enforce the carry-on regulations, monitor the availability of overhead space, and start tagging carry-ons once the space fills up.

If US claims that they made this change to make it easier for Preferred's to stow their carry-ons, my response would be stricter enforcement of the carry-on regulations, and an elite boarding carpet so elites can board at their leisure and not get stuck behind the school group traveling to band camp.

All of us who post here know the truth: The elites were grabbing all of the "choice seats" for free, leaving less seats for US to sell so that they could meet their ancillary revenue goals. Therefore, punish the elites by making them pay extra, too. Elites are the most likely to value these seats and (theoretically) be willing to pay extra for them, sooooo........let's just withhold those seats from elites (but allocate a few "Preferred" seats to throw them a bone). If they booked late and paid through the nose, but they value that aisle seat, they can always reach into their deep pockets and pay extra for it when they check in. 🙄

The irony is that someone like myself is the beneficiary of this new policy. I am *G, but unless I ask one of my CP parents to nominate me to DM Silver I cannot select exit row or Preferred seats. So if I cannot reserve an aisle seat in advance, I can pay a few extra dollars on top of my dirt-cheap ticket for an aisle seat which was denied to a CP who booked yesterday (after all F seats had been doled out to the Silvers), and paid full freight. US is basically rewarding me for not being loyal to them anymore. How is that fair to their loyal customers?