United and minimum stays
 

1 less airline for me to fly. I take a lot of business trips for 1 or 2 nights. Hopefully no other airlines follow suit

Sorry I really don't understand the rationale here.

I keep expecting airlines to discover they're shooting themselves in the foot, but it doesn't seem to be happening.

Maybe United is TRYING to go out of business? Trying to direct even more people to Southwest? Sheesh. At this rate, Southwest is going to have to add a lot of capacity this fall to compensate for all the new customers they're going to have (even if they have to raise airfares).

United was already near the bottom of my list of airlines to fly. I guess I'll just take them <i>off</i> the list!

I'm confused - when booking a seat, the price is dependent on how long you are going to stay?

All these new rules are going to make using an internet search worthless, unless you know which airlines require: minimum stays, extra baggage fees, etc. And it's just as hard to keep track of what miles you will earn (500 minimum?, less miles for cheaper seats?, any bonus mileage for FF?)

The minimum stay requirement is hardly new - just that in recent years it's been relaxed a little. It used to be very common to require a Saturday night stay-over for example to get certain round-trip fares.

I think this policy is just another attempt to squeeze more $$$ out of business travelers (leisure travelers are more likely to stay over a Saturday night).

But what it did was force business travelers on a budget to lose family time while they stayed over the required Sat. night.

This may not work quite the same way again because the fare differential has to be more than the cost of an extra night or two in a hotel. If it's less, people will pay it just to go home to their own beds.

Does this mean that United will not sell one-day roundtrip tickets. I travel frequently from New York to Chicago for the day, sometimes on United. I'm sure thousands of others do so each month. I must be misreading the release b/c I can't imagine that United wants to make itself unattractive to business travelers.

I'm guessing that in making this decision, United figures they'll make more money charging higher fares to business travelers like you who will continue to pay the higher fares than if they continued the current fare structure and served more passengers. You know, if you go from 20 business travelers a flight to 8 paying 3X more than before, that's more revenue...

They will sell the tickets. Just costing more.

thit_cho you will still be able to buy those same day tix. If you usually buy those tix a day or two or three in advance then you are probably paying a fare that wouldn't be affected by this policy.

If you usually buy those one-day turn tix 21 days in advance then you will will be paying more. You won't get the 21-day advance purchase fare even if you buy the ticket 22 days in advance. You will end up paying something like the 7-day or 3-day advance purchase fare or full fare or something like that.

They are trying to prevent business travelers from buying up the lower priced advance purchase fares. I think that lots of business travelers won't be affected because they don't buy those fares. I think it is a dumb idea and will cause the bargain-seeking business traveler to delay buying the ticket and/or go to the competition.

In my experience, business travelers fly home on Friday. Employers would have a lot of unhappy employees if they required a Sat. night stay in order to save money on airfare - it means giving up most of a weekend. I have never heard of such a thing.

Business travel budgets were/are set to be big enough so that employees don't have to stay over a Sat. night. The managers who make the budgets know that the policy would apply to them in addition to not makinng some of your best people unhappy. The difference in cost is not just one night's lodging. It is two night plus rental car plus per diem plus, possibly, a charge for the employee's time on their day off. I say &quot;possibly&quot; only because I have never heard of a case where an employee was required to blow their Sunday or Saturday so that the company could save a few bucks on airfare.

&lt;&lt;They will sell the tickets. Just costing more.

Not to everyone they won't. My husband would never stay over a Sat. night. Especially b/c most of his travel is Tues-Thurs.

And he books all his own travel. He books far enough ahead so he can take advantage of cheaper fares, and he comparision shops.

I am kind of surprised that they actually come out to announce it. The fact is that there are so many fares out there for each market, and each with its own rules and restrictions, that any airline can change all these anytime.

And like others have said, Saturday night stay for discount fares is nothing new. The practice just have become less prevalent as the legacies have to compete with the LCCs which sell fares by each way, so they don't exist for many markets.

For example, Continental has much more relaxed restrictions on EWR-Florida fares because of competition with Jetblue in the NYC-Florida market.

So, this announcement actually is targeted for the Wall Street analysts and UAUA investors, telling them they're indeed relentless to raise fares and fees. So, don't bail on them yet.

karens - My response was to thit_cho's question about whether the airline will still sell the tickets. Sell - meaning making them available, not meaning everybody will buy them.

Thanks, I thought so, but some of the press releases were a little unclear. And, you're correct, it may not affect business travelers that much -- we typically pay &quot;full fare&quot; since we want flexibility (ie, full refund if plans change), and we often plan meetings at the last moment.

And, I agree, very few business travelers will voluntarily agree to a Saturday night stay-over since this means losing most of the weekend (Friday night, all day Saturday, and traveling on Sunday).

Its a crazy system.

This is obviously specifically targeted at the business sector whereas the luggage fees have been targeted at the leisure sector.

If a leisure traveler can't find a fare they like, they will often skip the trip. A business traveler will pay the higher fare because the trip isn't optional.

Seems to me that the airlines are trying to alternate between hitting the leisure traveler and the business traveler. First they hit the leisure traveler with the luggage fees (business travelers usually don't check luggage anyway), now they are hitting the business traveler with the minimum stays (knowing the business will pay the price for the convenience).

My guess is that if the economy and gas prices don't change soon, those handy frequent flier credit cards will be the next to get neutered. Not completely cancelled, but limited to a large extent.

<i>My guess is that if the economy and gas prices don't change soon, those handy frequent flier credit cards will be the next to get neutered. Not completely cancelled, but limited to a large extent.</i>

Not a chance. The credit cards are a multi-million dollar business (perhaps in the billions for the larger carriers) and, likely, the only component of their business that actually turns a profit. They may limit the useability of the miles, but the credit cards aren't going anywhere.

I agree. Just 2 weeks ago, Chase announced they're paying Continental over $400 million for FF miles and benefits.

Bottom line is that they have to find a way to make money.

If it's luggage fees and Saturday nite stays for the lowest fares, so be it.

Everyone is going to do the same thing, IMO and those who were upset about the third checked bag at $25 should go back to that thread and see what the impact of the &quot;threats&quot; to switch airlines would have amounted to.

Dave

Travelgourmet - that's what I meant by &quot;being neutered&quot;. I can see them putting more limitations on the use of those miles while not actually cancelling the program with the credit cards. As long as the credit card companies are willing to pay what the airlines ask, they won't cancel it, but I do think they will start putting more black outs, etc. on the ff miles in the near future.

In the past, people got very clever about dove-tailing 2 &quot;Mirror&quot; itineraries to allow for quick-turnarounds re: places they frequently traveled.

Ex: If NYC-ORD round-trip including a Sat. is $250 but a shorter stay than that is $400., someone might book the NYC-ORD leg for, say, Tuesday the 3rd and the ORD-NYC return for two weeks later on Friday the 20th, and then another RT with the ORD-NYC for Friday the 6th and the &quot;return&quot; NYC-ORD for two weeks later on Tuesday the 17th.

Total cost $500 instead of $800.

Of course this depends on your needing to go to Chicago twice in succession, but you get the idea.

Other options included just swallowing the second half of a particularly cheap RT or -- when the airlines were REALLY not paying attention to their own fare structure -- just booking two one-ways that ended up being less than the premium no-weekend-stay RT.

Don't think this is the best strategy to make money, but no one can tell airlines anything other than what their CFO tells them, and CFO's often do not think like passengers, they think like accountants who just think &quot;all you have to do&quot; is tweak some one line item to &quot;fix&quot; the bottom line.

&lt;&lt;Everyone is going to do the same thing, IMO and those who were upset about the third checked bag at $25 should go back to that thread and see what the impact of the &quot;threats&quot; to switch airlines would have amounted to.

I agree Dave. Once of these scenerios get mentioned, everyone is quick to claim they'll never fly the airline anymore, or that the airline has just entered the first phase of ch. 7 by their decision. Over the years, I cannot tell you how many times I've read that USAir is doomed to liquidation.

In my reality, we don't have a lot of choice. Our airport is dominated by one airline, and I'm not a fan of Southwest. The other major airlines have less frequent service, fewer direct flights and are often more expensive. (Southwest is often not the cheapest, either.)