I was a very frequent flyer, but haven’t really flown much except international, mostly Southwest and occasionally on Frontier in the last few years even though I have a billion miles with United. I was about to book a flight on United from SFO-ORD on a Basic Economy fare (not full Economy) and saw something nebulous in their seat assignment language. I didn’t want to pay $30 for the ability to get an advanced assigned seat, I’m ok with that. Now Southwest will give you your boarding queue number upon online check-in, and Frontier will assign you a random seat when you online check in, all online, up to 24 hours in advance. So I called United to find out when I actually get my seat. Apparently, United only assigns a seat to you when you get to the airport and see an agent? That makes no sense whatsoever. My modus operandi is to do an online check-in, get my queue number or seat, get to the airport and go right to the gate, just in time for boarding. Is United telling me that I have to go to the airport, line up for god knows how long, and see an agent just to get my seat assignment? You have got to be joking. Please tell me that I dealt with two incompetent United agents. This is 2019, not 1985.
I thought they randomly assigned you a seat 24 hours in advance and that you could check in on line, but I could be mistaken.
Be also aware that with basic economy your carry on is restricted to basically a small personal item (like a purse). A real carry on bag will need to be checked and they’ll charge you more to do it at the airport.
wow, incredible…I also have a United VISA card for years and years (not Explorer) and that got me no priority other than to have a free carry-on (or maybe it was a free check-in, which does me no good)…
Since you can only check in at the airport, you need to leave for the airport earlier, so that a delay getting to the airport will not cause you to miss the check in window, and delays in the queue for the agent (or kiosk if allowed) will not cause you to miss the check in window.
I just flew United economy and used the kiosk to get my boarding pass. It only took a few minutes. This was in Orlando. I had a large backpack and another small item
Here is the kicker - once purchased, some airlines’ basic economy fares are not upgradable via miles or status. Alaska introduced these basic fares and had to send a loooong apology letter to their MVPs explaining those rules… because apparently folks got angry that they could not use miles to upgrade.
@busdriver11 I usually use my miles only if the value is there, ie. I use it if the value is more than 1.5 cents to the mile. So for 25K miles, I would use it only if the value was greater than $375, i.e. perhaps a direct flight from SFO-EWR or SFO-BOS or something like that, where 25K miles makes sense. For ORD-SFO, in this case it didn’t make sense since this cheapo fare was around $250. United I believe is changing their model to account for distance in the future.
I’m also trying to make Premier again this year as I’ve taken a couple of business flights this year already and I’m flying to Rome in a couple of week, so another reason why I’m ok with paying. I also try and save the miles for big excursions to Europe or Asia. I just looked at my United piggy back, down to ~400K miles now. Was over 1.2 million at one point.
I’d spring for at least a full economy seat. The greatest danger with Basic Economy is that if they need to bump passengers for any reason you’ll be the first in line.
The requirement for Basic Economy passengers to check in at the airport probably means that more of them will miss the check in window, presumably accounted for in overbooking calculations.
I recently booked a basic economy. I had to fly on a short notice and everything else was very expensive. It was fine. They said I won’t get a seat assignment but when I checked in the day before, I got a seat. Both on inbound and outbound. I also took my carryon with me on board. It was not all that different from main economy.
Million-mile fliers with United don’t get permanent status? I belive with American you get something like lifetime Gold status which gives you free access to premium seats.
American’s Basic Economy allows a standard size carry-on and you can check-in on-line. If you don’t want to pay for a seat you choose yourself, the system will assign one at check-in. Actually, DH and I did this yesterday. We were assigned seats across from each other, five rows from the front of the plane. These seats were better than those available for purchase!
ProfPlum, I’m in full agreement with you. Most of my travel is international on foreign carriers, but United has lost my domestic business.
United Basic Economy is a great deal if you carry United Explorer card. Works for international travel too. And most of the time I do not get assigned the middle seat.
Some airlines keep different tracks of miles. Only the actual “butt in the seat” miles flown on the airline are counted towards stays, but not the miles earned by using the airline-branded card or miles flown on parter airlines. Alaska does it.
@momofadult unfortunately I haven’t flown a million miles via United. I used to rack up a minimum of 10K a month just on personal and business expenses thru my United card pretty easily. I wished I had the Explorer card a while back. I’m not spending early as much these days.