Tag Archives for basic economy.
During United’s earnings call last month they explained they would be tweaking Basic Economy fares.
The idea of Basic Economy is to offer such a bad experience that you’ll spend more money to avoid it. However when United first rolled out the fares they lost about $100 million — because customers were avoiding United.
Basic economy isn’t supposed to be a new cheaper fare. It’s supposed to be new restrictions on what used to be the cheapest fare. That way people who don’t like the restrictions are supposed to spend more money to avoid the inferior experience.
But American offered me such a spread between Basic Economy and regular coach fares that I couldn’t justify spending more money, and I wound up flying Basic for the first time.
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 »
