Bilt is valuable because they have access to valuable customers – young urban professionals, upwardly mobile – that everyone wants to reach and fails at. They have that access where they live and they built a valuable and engaging program to reach them.
In other words, they’ve come up with a novel approach to the distribution problem that everyone is struggling with.
United Airlines offers less value on a basic economy ticket than competitors do. They don’t allow basic economy passengers to bring a regular carry-on bag on, and they haven’t allowed basic economy passengers to check in online, wasting passengers’ time. Fortunately they’re relaxing the online check-in rule but they’re doing it in a strange and troubling way.
Most people don’t realize that basic economy restrictions aren’t the same across airlines and that United Airlines offers much worse value than competitors.
On Tuesday a Southwest Airlines passenger was queuing to board. He and his wife had two of the very best boarding positions – A2 and A3. The person with A4 became hostile.
A United Airlines passenger sitting in first class – he and his family were all upgraded – snapped a photo of a woman in the cabin texting racial epithets about him. (He and his family are black.)
The flight was rom Charleston, South Carolina to Denver. Boarding was delayed, and he says the woman was rude to him from the start. She winds up as the passenger in front of them in the first class cabin.
Shortly after takeoff, the man refused to stay seated, and began shouting nad screaming. He vaped, and locked himself in the lavatory. He finally came out – and tried to open the aircraft’s emergency exit doors, at both the front and rear of the Airbus A321. He also propositioned a flight attendant for sex.
United Airlines was overbooked by 14 passengers on a flight to Las Vegas. They hadn’t even sold more tickets than seats.
The Biden administration is initiating a rulemaking to require that airlines seat families with children age 13 and under together for free. Generally speaking they already do, under pressure earlier in the administration. In fact, DOT has a dashboard showing this and since it’s part of airline customer service plans it’s enforceable.
Word broke yesterday that United Airlines was putting bigger regional jets – Embraer 175s – on its Aspen routes. This was surprising since the airport doesn’t support these planes, and has blocked attempts to require that they make very modest changes in order to do so. How did United make this happen?
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Delta and United have suspended service to Tel Aviv, in anticipation of an escalation in hostilities between Israel and Iran, Hezbollah, and other Iranian-backed groups after Israel struck Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh while at his home in Tehran.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
