JFC, these United minimum stay requirements are ridiculous

[Ns1]

I thought NWA's saturday night stay was bad, but this is recockulous. Companies should invest in video conferencing equipment just to spite the airlines.

NEW YORK - United Airlines said Friday it will start requiring minimum stays for nearly all domestic flights beginning in October. It is also raising its cheapest fares by as much as $90 one-way.

The second-largest U.S. carrier said the moves are among a number of changes it is making to combat record high fuel prices. The Chicago-based airline has been among the most aggressive in the industry in pushing fares and fuel surcharges higher in recent months, and its latest policy could prompt other carriers to consider following suit.

Starting Oct. 6, most United fares will require a one- to three-night or weekend-night minimum stay, spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said.

The new rules, which apply to nearly every ticket, are bound to be unpopular with business travelers who prefer to catch a flight out early in the morning so they can make it back home in time for dinner.

Major carriers scrapped most minimum-stay rules ? put in place largely to discourage big-budget corporate travelers from snatching up the cheapest seats ? years ago, although a number of airlines have been tightening up restrictions and tacking on fees in recent months as the price of fuel has soared.

United and US Airways last week joined American Airlines in charging passengers $15 to check their first piece of luggage.

How long passengers have to stay under United's new minimum-stay policy will depend on the destinations involved, the price of the ticket and the length of the flight.

For example, travelers booking the cheapest seats between Chicago and Minneapolis or Boston and San Diego will now be forced to stay three nights or the entire weekend, Urbanski said.

United also has raised its lowest fares by $1 to $90 one-way, meaning the least expensive available United ticket will now cost travelers $69 to $199 one-way, depending on the length of the flight.

For example, the cheapest one-way ticket for the 770-mile flight from Denver to St. Louis now costs $99, up from $89 before. A bargain ticket for a longer flight like Austin, Texas, to Los Angeles ? a journey of nearly 1,240 miles ? now costs $139, up from $79 one-way, Urbanski said.

 

[KeithTalent]

United is shit.

KT

 

[EagleKeeper]

If a traveler knows their schedule in advance, they can purchase two tickets with an internal reverse R/T.

Accounting will raise a fit until they see the savings.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
If a traveler knows their schedule in advance, they can purchase two tickets with an internal reverse R/T.

Accounting will raise a fit until they see the savings.

Don't airlines react when people only use one part of a round-trip ticket?

 

[Saint Michael]

I go to college in Iowa, and the tickets from NY to Des Moines are brutal. Last semester it was $300 round-trip, this semester my ticket is $400, and in the spring I have to buy two more. Who knows how brutal it will be by the time I have the money...

 

[Ns1]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
If a traveler knows their schedule in advance, they can purchase two tickets with an internal reverse R/T.

Accounting will raise a fit until they see the savings.

Don't airlines react when people only use one part of a round-trip ticket?

In a previous NWA article re: same subject, it was stated that computer systems are now designed to prevent this and it goes against the airlines contract of carriage


You buy 2 round trip tickets and only use the departing one, thus they can't do anything.

 

[AccruedExpenditure]

The Legacy Airlines are begging for their deaths
-AE

 

[aphex]

Maybe I'm an idiot (ok ok, i am an idiot), but how does enforcing a minimum stay save the airlines money? They still need to go back and forth, if there is a flight the same day, WTF, why not just let them take it?

 

[ChaoZ]

What's minimum stay? You have to buy round trip tickets?

 

[Flammable]

Originally posted by: ChaoZ
What's minimum stay? You have to buy round trip tickets?

make them stay for at least a certain amount of days at destination

 

[andylawcc]

Originally posted by: Flammable

Originally posted by: ChaoZ
What's minimum stay? You have to buy round trip tickets?

make them stay for at least a certain amount of days at destination

but what's the incentive for the airline to do so? I can only imagine the hotel industry and local tourism will reap the benefits; but I doubt they will thank the airline for doing so. The only thing I can think the evil purpose of minimum stay is to rip off business travelors, which doesn't mean much sense. It's like McDonald or Starbucks adding a surcharge during breakfast hours to rape the morning mum with crying kids.

 

[Itchrelief]

Originally posted by: aphex
Maybe I'm an idiot (ok ok, i am an idiot), but how does enforcing a minimum stay save the airlines money? They still need to go back and forth, if there is a flight the same day, WTF, why not just let them take it?

I am guessing that the expensive tickets do not have this minimum stay. The cheap ones do. This is the attempt to make business travelers buy the expensive tickets.

 

[glenn1]

Originally posted by: AccruedExpenditure
The Legacy Airlines are begging for their deaths
-AE

Agreed. I work for a Fortune 50 firm and we've been migrating to charter flight services and Cisco teleconferencing for a couple years now. If for some reason we had to fly commercial, then there's no way the company is going to pay extra for a same-day return. The only possible exception I could see for the same-day return would be high-value potential hires being brought in for a job interview.

 

[Babbles]

I work for a mid sized company, ~1800 people, with a primary location in Michigan and a smaller location in Pennsylvania. It has been much cheaper, not to mention convenient, for our company to have a corporate lease on a private jet. Again we are by no means a large company so therefore if it makes more financial sense for us, then it sure as shit got to make financial sense for larger companies.

Now my point is if it is smarter for businesses to use private owned or lease aircraft that would drive business travel away from the large airline companies. It is then my understanding that business travel is a huge revenue portion of airline companies, so by them dicking around with items like this, it seems to me that they are just making it that much easier for companies to choose other options which would further drive revenue from the airline carriers. Basically when they make decisions that they think are 'smart' they are in all likelihood just digging themselves even further into their financial grave.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
If a traveler knows their schedule in advance, they can purchase two tickets with an internal reverse R/T.

Accounting will raise a fit until they see the savings.

Don't airlines react when people only use one part of a round-trip ticket?

Example:

Traveler has to go to DC from LA in beginning of July (1-3)and end of July (21-24).

Two R/T tickets are purchased

LA->DC (1 July) returning DC->LA (24 July)
DC->LA (3 July) returning LA->DC (21 July)

The weekend rule for both trips has been met
The travelers need to be gone on business has been met.

Should anything happen to cancel the second trip; then the traveler is out the two return trips unless something can be arrange w/ the airlines.

This carries the same risk of purchasing a ticket in advance that is non-refundable.


Airlines can get upset when one uses the return section of a ticket prior to the inital section.
And sometimes the complete ticketwill get locked out if the intial leg is not used.

Example: LA->DEN->DC may be cheaper than DEN->DC
If one one attempts to get on the flight segmentat DEN without checking in at LA, there could be problems - the complete reservation could become cancelled.

All the above examples are based on experience in the 90's
Airports are different to protect the guilty.

 

[Ns1]

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
If a traveler knows their schedule in advance, they can purchase two tickets with an internal reverse R/T.

Accounting will raise a fit until they see the savings.

Don't airlines react when people only use one part of a round-trip ticket?

Example:

Traveler has to go to DC from LA in beginning of July (1-3)and end of July (21-24).

Two R/T tickets are purchased

LA->DC (1 July) returning DC->LA (24 July)
DC->LA (3 July) returning LA->DC (21 July)

The weekend rule for both trips has been met
The travelers need to be gone on business has been met.

Should anything happen to cancel the second trip; then the traveler is out the two return trips unless something can be arrange w/ the airlines.

This carries the same risk of purchasing a ticket in advance that is non-refundable.


Airlines can get upset when one uses the return section of a ticket prior to the inital section.
And sometimes the complete ticketwill get locked out if the intial leg is not used.

Example: LA->DEN->DC may be cheaper than DEN->DC
If one one attempts to get on the flight segmentat DEN without checking in at LA, there could be problems - the complete reservation could become cancelled.

All the above examples are based on experience in the 90's
Airports are different to protect the guilty.

That was not the interpretation I had, as there was an article on Consumerist where the guy's flight got canceled because he didn't use the one way.

Buy 1 RT ticket fly LA -> Boston, use LA -> Boston part
Buy 1 RT ticket fly Boston -> LA, use Boston -> LA part.

You ditch the return flight on both tickets.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: Ns1

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
If a traveler knows their schedule in advance, they can purchase two tickets with an internal reverse R/T.

Accounting will raise a fit until they see the savings.

Don't airlines react when people only use one part of a round-trip ticket?

Example:

Traveler has to go to DC from LA in beginning of July (1-3)and end of July (21-24).

Two R/T tickets are purchased

LA->DC (1 July) returning DC->LA (24 July)
DC->LA (3 July) returning LA->DC (21 July)

The weekend rule for both trips has been met
The travelers need to be gone on business has been met.

Should anything happen to cancel the second trip; then the traveler is out the two return trips unless something can be arrange w/ the airlines.

This carries the same risk of purchasing a ticket in advance that is non-refundable.


Airlines can get upset when one uses the return section of a ticket prior to the inital section.
And sometimes the complete ticketwill get locked out if the intial leg is not used.

Example: LA->DEN->DC may be cheaper than DEN->DC
If one one attempts to get on the flight segmentat DEN without checking in at LA, there could be problems - the complete reservation could become cancelled.

All the above examples are based on experience in the 90's
Airports are different to protect the guilty.

That was not the interpretation I had, as there was an article on Consumerist where the guy's flight got canceled because he didn't use the one way.

Buy 1 RT ticket fly LA -> Boston, use LA -> Boston part
Buy 1 RT ticket fly Boston -> LA, use Boston -> LA part.

You ditch the return flight on both tickets.

The cost of the two sets of tickets will usually be higher than the"penalty" for not staying the week-end.

Having the dual R/T tickets is advantageous if you know in advance of the second trip

 

[kranky]

Originally posted by: Ns1
Buy 1 RT ticket fly LA -> Boston, use LA -> Boston part
Buy 1 RT ticket fly Boston -> LA, use Boston -> LA part.

You ditch the return flight on both tickets.

Airlines have the right to backcharge the difference between the round-trip and the one-way price when you do that.

We have people who travel worldwide all the time and we've tried every trick in the book including the scheme Common Courtesy mentioned. We got busted on the method Common Courtesy suggested when the airline found the traveler had two half-used tickets open at the same time. Some things worked once or twice but the airlines eventually sniffed them out (including the "ditch the return flight" maneuver) with one exception.

The exception which we still use is this. Let's say you go from Philadelphia to Denver every week for two days.
First trip is the 3rd/4th of the month
Next trip is the 10th/11th
Next is the 17th/18th
Next is the 24th/25th

You buy round-trip tickets from Denver to Philadelphia (the reverse of the actual trip), leaving the 4th, returning the 10th. Also leaving the 11th/returning the 17th, leaving the 18th/returning the 24th, etc.

The first leg of the first trip is an expensive one-way from Phila-Denver. Same for the last leg of the last trip. But in between, you have round-trips which all show a weekend stay.

Nothing about this sets off any warning alerts to the airlines.

 

[johnjbruin]

Southwest, JetBlue and Virgin America FTW.

All these other legacy carriers are just dying a slow death.

I mean come on, southwest hedged oil at $61 - couldn't the others have done at least something rather than paying almost spot prices.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: andylawcc

but what's the incentive for the airline to do so? I can only imagine the hotel industry and local tourism will reap the benefits; but I doubt they will thank the airline for doing so. The only thing I can think the evil purpose of minimum stay is to rip off business travelors, which doesn't mean much sense. It's like McDonald or Starbucks adding a surcharge during breakfast hours to rape the morning mum with crying kids.

they are price discriminating. the airlines are the best industry at the world at doing this. it's the same reason buying a ticket at the counter in the airport costs much more than buying one weeks in advance online. same reason buying a refundable ticket costs a lot more than buying a non-refundable. they're trying to make the most on people with expense accounts, because people on vacations don't pay the airlines' bills.