2mo ago

YSK that United has significantly escalated their war against basic economy passengers

So I went to check in online, and it asked me to check some boxes for what luggage I wanted to bring on board. I did, and it told me that to carry on both a backpack and a roller bag it’ll be $45, or $65 if I try to play games and they have to check stuff at the gate.

I said fuck that, and unchecked some boxes. It said I couldn’t check in without putting a credit card on file, that they would charge if there were any issues and they wound up needing to charge me for my luggage. It wouldn’t let me continue without putting a credit card on file and checking a box that said they could charge me for my luggage, if they felt it was excessive.

I said fuck that and decided to check in at the airport. I threw all my stuff in a backpack to remove any wiggle room, and the kiosk said the same thing. I talked to one of the people, and she said it’s a new policy. I pointed out that I paid for my ticket, she could see I had only a backpack, and I wanted to get in the airplane. She told me to go talk to the guy at the end.

I talked to the guy at the end, politely, and eventually he printed a boarding pass for me. But you should know they’re up to some bullshit.

100 comments

Airlines are assholes and they keep getting worse. We’re at the end of the stage of capitalism where things seem somewhat ok sometimes and maybe good if you’re lucky. Everything is going to be awful and terrible to increasing degrees from here on.
- Please drink verification can
  
  Pleaae shove the empty can into your ass.
  
  hits can
  pick up that can
  
  For the first couple years it'll only be sound based and we'll all be doing a modern version of phreaking.
  
  Is this an ancient 4chan pasta?
- End stage capitalism is more easily defined: all, or nearly all Consumer surplus has been converted to Firm profit.

I stopped flying United when they beat the shit out of one of their passengers and dragged him off the plane
- For those unfamiliar with that incident:
  2017 United Express passenger removal
  On April 9, 2017, at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, four paying customers were selected to be involuntarily deplaned from United Express Flight 3411 to make room for four deadheading employees. One of these passengers was David Dao, 69, a Vietnamese-American who was injured when he was physically assaulted and forcefully removed from the flight by Chicago Department of Aviation Security officers. Dao, a pulmonologist, refused to leave his seat when directed because he needed to see patients the following day. In the process of removing him, the security officers struck his face against an armrest, then dragged him – bloodied, bruised, and unconscious – by his arms down the aircraft aisle, past rows of onlooking passengers. The incident is widely characterized by critics – and later by United Airlines itself – as an example of mishandled customer service.
  
  "mishandled customer service"
  That is not the appropriate term for what happened!
  
  did no one go to prison for this??? wtf
- United: "Fly the friendly skies"
  
  that’s what they tell you right before throwing you off the plane

Obligatory "fuck United".
They fucked up my vacation a number of years ago and I have since sworn them off. The most generous interpretation of the incident is that I missed an email updating a time change and arrived at the airport after the flight had left. Their next flight wasn't until the next morning. My wife and I were looking and there was a flight from a different airline that would have cost them $400 each to book for us (they wouldn't refund us so we could purchase that separately). The first agent at the counter completely understood our request but simply didn't have the authority to make that decision. So she got a supervisor. The supervisor did that annoying ass thing where they listen to your request and then restate it in objectively different terms to sound unreasonable. In the end they covered a hotel for the night and gave us $550 each in travel vouchers and lost a customer for life. So they ended up paying way more and lost a customer than had they not fucked around from the start. Had they paid the $400 from the beginning, we'd have given them much higher preference on our future flights which have been many.

I used to fly united quite a bit and it used to be pretty good. But these days my options for flying for work are united, delta, and southwest and I usually choose delta because they don't charge you for shit and you can have both an overhead carry on and a small bag plus free internet on the plane. In the end they're all shit, but I'm going to pick the lesser of the shits each time. Same reason I have Comcast internet.
- I use Comcast because I have one choice and it’s Comcast
  
  That’s why almost everyone who uses Comcast uses Comcast.
  
  Same for me, and as shitty as Comcast has been in other places, I've had only two non-power related outages with them in almost 7 years here. I think their service quality varies not only state by state, but even county to county in some places.
- Same reason I have Comcast internet.
  You lost me. I was with you right up until that point, but then you went off the deep end.
  
  As a begrudging Comcast customer myself, allow me to explain. They are the least shitty option because the only alternatives in my area are 5G and Verizon DSL. Verizon DSL has a max download speed less than 1mbps.
  So yeah, I use Comcast. And I hate it.
  
  My choices are AT&T and Comcast. Both are shitty and treat you equally shitty, but Comcast actually works most of the time ¯(ツ)/¯
  
  As a happy Comcast customer, my old ISP still only sells plans up to 100 Mbps and it routes all traffic through a city that's over 200 miles away.

Basic economy simply isn't worth it. They nickel and dime you with all the BS fees. And the credit card thing is total bullshit, too. They do it because they want to make sure they have your card on file in order to sell you overpriced snack boxes and charge them to your seat.
Once I had to buy a poor lady some crackers because she was on the last leg of a flight from Asia and hasn't eaten anything, but the stewardess couldn't take her money unless she had set up her CC ahead of time.
I fly United often enough for work that I have some status, so I'm one of the entitied snobs who board first and hog all the overhead space.
- Agreed, similar situation for me. United is not for non status travelers.
  
  They also push their credit card with Chase. It has a $99 yearly fee, but gives you a free checked bag and lets you into Boarding Group 2 without needing extra status, which has an okay chance of having enough overhead for a carry-on. If you intend to fly United more than once in a year with a checked bag, but not enough to get status, it can make more sense to get the card.
  It kind of sucks to have to play those games, but that's Capitalism.
- It might could be worth it if you're doing a shorter flight and just don't have baggage but that's rare.

I refuse to fly domestically anymore just because the TSA is all security theater, I refuse to go through their backscatter x-ray, and I'm not interested in their enhanced groping. I will ride my motorcycle 1000 miles in a single day rather than take a plane anywhere.
- They phased out back scatter x-ray like a decade ago. They only use millimeter wave, which doesn't have ionizing radiation.
  
  Regardless; the TSA was caught lying about the capabilities of the machines, and I'm just not willing to step foot through one. The ionizing radiation doesn't worry me, because I was never flying frequently enough for it to be an issue.
- Same. Flying has become such a terrible experience that I refuse to take part in it anymore. With the overbooking resulting in people getting kicked off planes, price-gouging customers, constantly late flights, stranding people without compensation, people packed in so tight that no one is comfortable, lack of cleanliness, constitutional rights violations, stealing luggage and items in luggage, violations of people's bodies...I don't think it's an exaggeration to call it cruelty to the passengers.
  
  Also the planes sometimes fall apart now
- I will ALWAYS get the grope if I avoid the cancer box.
  I have a deep-seated fear of the cancer box. I was okay with it - I get x-rays a bit for ongoing Achilles issues - until I learned that when Boston TSA asked the FAA what the risks are of standing nearby it for hours at a time, the response was
  undefined
  
  No. We're not telling. STFU & GBtW.
  That's when I decided I'd like to avoid it.
  What I've learned:
  sometimes they're bored and don't wanna do it so they'll wave you through an arch and you're out.
  don't call it a cancer box to an obvious type-a failed-cop TSA agent or you'll have a discussion you'll want to get out of quickly
  sometimes they want to be dinks. If you have any shame - not me, ex-army - it may not be comfy to show a dad-bod to the other passengers. Take the hazing.
  usually they roll their eyes and call the noob over and it's a perfunctory process.
  So there.
  
  I used to work in a job that involved handling radioactive materials. We had dosimeter badges to track long term exposure to radiation. One pass through the full body scanner at a TSA checkpoint would make the dosimeter badge come back from the lab at greater than monthly allowable exposure. I'll take the grope.
- Is your name Dean?
  
  It is neither Dean nor Sam.
  Besides, a motorcycle is far more fuel efficient; I typically get about 40-45mpg, v. 12mpg for a '67 Impala.
- Same.
  I will road trip or take a train instead of flying. I'd rather be on the road twelve hours than in a plane for one.
- Road trip is more eco friendly anyways.

That’s some budget airline behavior. If they want to do tha, they should price their flights accordingly.

Yeah they've gotten really weird about forcing you to use their app and put a credit card on it constantly. Really annoying.

Its a good thing this hold over from immediately after the attacks on 9/11 happened is still in effect or the terrorist might have won.
Not to hijack the thread but which airlines is least likely to put you on a plane made by boeing?
- For US carriers off the top of my head, Spirit and frontier are all airbus fleets. Allegiant has one 737 in their fleet I think and is otherwise Airbus. JetBlue and Breeze have no Boeing products. All the big airlines have lots of Boeing products.
  
  I will walk to where I need to go before I fly spirit or frontier.
- Usually European companies prefer Airbus. Lufthansa is usually a safe bet.
  US companies? Best of luck.
  
  I've never flown in an Airbus, in the EU. It's all Boeing or tiny propeller planes.
  
  We've had mixed results with Lufthansa. It was absolutely stellar but they've had their share of avoidable sadness.
  We like icelandair now because of (normally) the overnight stop near keflavik and they're usually really pleasant people.

Well, they do break guitars...
- https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

I learned this about United this summer. Except the language they used didn't specifically rule out roller bags, it called them "full-sized carryon". I showed up with a checked bag and a small carryon. The desk agent told me wheels make it a "full-sized" regardless of the dimensions. Fortunately, I was able to stuff a bunch of stuff a bunch of my crap into my checked SCUBA bag, and repack my regs and underwear into the backpack I was bringing anyways.
Note: This was on an International flight so I REALLY didn't appreciate feeling like I was flying on a budget airline.
- My sarcastic asshole would have snapped the wheels off the bag if that's the distinction they want to have.
  
  Lol, Hilarious and justified but I get quite compliant around people who could stand between me and a SCUBA/ bachelor party trip.
- Thank you for your comment, I was confused what people are complaining about (you've had to pay for carry on items since ~2008, which have always been different than a "personal item" which is like a backpack or tote bag that you can bring for free if you store under the seat in front of you). It sounded like people weren't understanding what a personal item was vs a carry on. But if they are arbitrarily saying wheels, regardless of size, also determine personal item vs carryon, I can see the frustration.
  But otherwise their policy has been like this for a super long time - pay for carry on, and if you pay at the gate they charge extra. Almost 20 years now.
  That being said I hold a grudge against all airlines for charging you a fee to pick your seat. They used to let you just pick it as a perk for booking online. Now they even have to nickel and dime our fucking loved one's emotional support while we pray that the plane doesn't fucking fall apart and while we breathe in the germs of some stranger next to us. Airlines are assholes.
  Eta: airline fun fact - the CIA used to own an airline (this is verified by the CIA's website itself)
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_America_(airline)

You know what's objectively worst than united, as per polls and feedback?
Every Canadian airline.
We used to have a good one, but they just got bought out by scumbags. It wasn't the one with our country in the name. Now they both suck worse than the other. You don't think that's possible, logically, but you'll find out it's true.
- Why are you being so mysterious about the good airline?? Are you an rpg npc?
  
  Can't be air canada and repressed trauma prevents me from acknowledging WestJet's existence, so I'm going to guess the good one is Harbour Air. They run the cute little seaplanes you see around Vancouver and Victoria. I hear that boarding one when the system clock is set to 3am unlocks a special area where you can catch spirit bears.
- The same thing happened in Australia. It is a tragedy.

I wish flying was affordable. My girlfriend lives in Korea and it's going to cost her 2k to come see my family in Canada in December. This is nearly double what she paid in 2017 for the same trip, and while it's not prohibitively expensive, it's deterrently expensive

i don't know how much money it would take to ever get me on a plane again, but it would be a lot
- At this rate, I am only flighting in extra ordinary circumstances.
  I dont need stupid vacations across country. I cant drive or train, it aint worth it.

After having to fly United a bunch of times this summer, they changed the names of the tickets and invented a new "no one wants that" tier.
There's now standard economy which is what everyone's used to and gives you a "personal item" (i.e. a backpack or a purse) and a "carry on item", and basic economy which only includes the personal item. They mention it on their website, but on third party websites its not quite as obvious which ticket you're getting.
It has been a nightmare - on every single flight there's a crowd of people pissed that they aren't allowed a carry on with their ticket, with them having to run halfway across the airport to upgrade their tickets or pay 3x as much for a bag they thought was included.
If you're being charitable, it's a roundabout discount on checked bags to fix the problem they invented by charging for checked bags and then sucking at handling them. Every single flight I took had them asking for people to check their carry on for free because the bins were going to be overloaded, and it seems like they want to incentivize actually checking a bag again.
I started instantly asking them to gate check my carry on (for free) because honestly, the airport experience is way nicer when you don't have to deal with your luggage all the time. If you check 1 bag as a couple you might even save money, and if you're alone it might be worth the difference to not have to worry about only having two pairs of pants on your three week trip.
More realistically they want to normalize having to pay for carry on the same way they did checked bags, and they are trying to sneak around that by starting with only their new BS economy tier. Wouldn't surprise me if they got rid of "basic" and just made carry on a "business class" or whatever amenity.
- It's basic economics in its ugly application.
  Usually, the people who are buying stuff come in different tiers: The people who want to pay the least at all cost, people who are careless enough to get fleeced out of a few dollars for the same crappy product if paying less is difficult, and people who are willing to pay a premium for really good stuff. There's an art to structuring your service to catch all of the tiers, and make sure that they're all going to pay the highest price they will accept, and I think "basic economy" is a new technological development in drawing a more effective distinction between tiers 1 and 2.
  What makes it ugly is that they're designing deliberately punitive features into the service to push people up into tier 2 who would otherwise be going on Kayak and just clicking the "cheapest" button. If you have any willingness to pay $40 more, they want it. They're going to put you to the test a little bit, to make sure that you're committed to the lowest price, and then if so they're going to punish you a little for it, while still taking your money.
  American and United are now both on the no-fly list for me, I think. I may have to see what airlines are decent, when you fly them one tier up.

I read that as "United States" and the headline only started to look suspicious with the word "passengers".
- I thought Manchester United.

Haven't there always been rules about only 1 piece of carry-on, and there were limits for its size? It was simply never checked. Resulting in overhead boxes being full because some people brought multiple bags, resulting in some people being unable to store their stuff overhead. They're just enforcing the rules now right? Or has something actually changed?
- You used to be able to carry on one reasonable size bag, and they didn’t stress about it because the total load of luggage / purses / backpacks and so on was fine. You could do what you wanted and they’d fly you where you were going.
  Then some genius realized they could charge people $40 for checked bags, so everyone started carrying everything on, so it became a problem and they had to start checking everything at the gate for everyone who didn’t feel like paying the $40 extra for no reason fee, which was the majority of people.
  This is just the natural end point of that evolution, where they initiate open hostility to the customer and try to force you into paying $45 more than the ticket price and actively fuck with you to try to bully you into submitting to it.
  It’s partially the fault of everyone who just goes on Kayak and hits whatever is the cheapest option. That’s what I do, anyway. Or did, until this week, when I learned my lesson about it.
  
  It’s partially the fault of everyone who just goes on Kayak and hits whatever is the cheapest option. That’s what I do, anyway. Or did, until this week, when I learned my lesson about it.
  I guess that's true. When you go through the website they have many warnings when you select basic economy about the carry on not being included, I have to basically budget +$60 each time I'm looking for flights because they always show the basic economy first
  
  Sorry you unknowingly took a stress bullet for the team! However I really appreciate the heads up.
- They used to say "one carry-on and one personal item" (which included things like a purse or a backpack). On my shorter trips, I could travel without checking a bag under this policy.
- Something actually changed and now there's a carry-on not included tier ticket. I wrote more in my other comment in the thread.
- Make the gangways longer
  Make them hell on rolly bags
  Deny the use of carts on the gangway
  Make sure every piece of luggage must stay with the passenger
  Fuck it. Put stairs (and a key-op elevator for wheelchairs) at the very end
  There - I just solved the carry-on issue. If you can bundle all your shit into one bag and carry or drag it 700feet and up a flight of stairs, then, you sir can carry it on.
  ... IF it fits in the sizing thingy they only put AT the hatchway and enforce harshly. If it don't fit, you must go back and check it. They do that ONCE and noone will be hogging the overheads again.

I just pay their premiums in order to avoid all the hassles you described. It's a removed.
- That's their goal

why would I fly united? do they go places other airlines don't?
- Because cheaper. And now, I know why.

Stop flying.
- MAKE ME.

100 comments