{"id":501,"date":"2008-11-07T19:00:45","date_gmt":"2008-11-07T17:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/?p=501"},"modified":"2008-11-07T19:00:45","modified_gmt":"2008-11-07T17:00:45","slug":"united-starts-charging-for-upgrades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=501","title":{"rendered":"United Starts Charging for Upgrades"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/?p=63\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-58\" style=\"border: 0pt none; margin-left: 5px; margin-right: 5px;\" title=\"Airplane\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/airplane_istockphoto.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"131\" height=\"87\" \/>Some time ago<\/a> we discussed a potential market for business class upgrades.\u00a0 Now comes news from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.united.com\">United Airlines<\/a> that they will <a href=\"http:\/\/www.united.com\/page\/article\/0,6722,52895,00.html#upgrade\">start charging<\/a> a variable price for upgrades, ranging from 0 to $500, depending on where you are going, and what class in which you book your travel.\u00a0 This will be <strong>in addition to miles (although 1\/3 less than before).<\/strong> A number of my colleagues are grousing about this, but not me.\u00a0 For one thing, the actual likelihood of an upgrade for other than the top elite has been reducing over time.\u00a0 While we don&#8217;t know what the downturn holds, it was a rare situation when one could find a free seat in either business or first class.\u00a0 This is particularly true on A320 aircraft, where there are only 8 first class seats.\u00a0 That says that somehow or another, United was leaving either money or miles on the table.\u00a0 These days, money is far more interesting to United, and so the charge was to be expected.\u00a0 The variable nature of the charge leaves United with room to experiment, so that they can still fill seats and make money in the process.\u00a0 After all, they have to find a new equilibrium.<\/p>\n<p>As for me personally, as I live in Switzerland, and Swiss already charges for upgrades that I can get, this will allow me an opportunity to take advantage of Swiss more without feeling as though I am losing (more) money.\u00a0 And so right now it seems like a win\/win.\u00a0 It does pose a question for others, particularly companies that have been relying on their employees&#8217; largesse for transatlantic upgrades.\u00a0 In a downturn, it is unlikely employees will make a big stink.\u00a0 Wait until the upturn, however&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some time ago we discussed a potential market for business class upgrades.\u00a0 Now comes news from United Airlines that they will start charging a variable price for upgrades, ranging from 0 to $500, depending on where you are going, and what class in which you book your travel.\u00a0 This will be in addition to miles &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=501\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;United Starts Charging for Upgrades&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[203,202,71],"class_list":["post-501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-prices","tag-united","tag-upgrades"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":502,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions\/502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}