United Eliminates Free Liquor In Premium Economy [Roundup]

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About Gary Leff

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 »

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Comments

  1. I simply don’t understand how a few extra minis on premium tickets move the needle on a 43.3 billion dollar company. That’s where your profit is on that ticket? Killing the booze?

  2. @Jon. There will be no profit on that ticket as it won’t be sold. Competitors offer a better product.

  3. Another year, another round of “Biggest ever bonus on Skymiles credit cards!” followed by “oh, they doubled redemption costs with no notice so that 25% bigger bonus doesn’t look so great.”

  4. On Monday United says they want to be the best and most premium airline.

    On Tuesday, United announces cuts.

    So with the exception of a better seat, how is it premium economy?

  5. What violates Thai Lèse-majesté law? Just about anything the government thinks is a violation. Gary’s post and this comment included. The current Thai government seems to envy China’s “rule of law” and undisputed control over what its people can say publicly. My guess is the King is not insulted by the tweet. At least in the U.S., when someone is accused of defamation, truth is a defense.

  6. I really don’t understand why anyone would value Skymiles from a credit card or redemption perspective. Delta redemption is just so ridiculous.

  7. Wow: “United eliminates complimentary liquor in premium economy”?

    Trans-Atlantic fares for this summer are running north of $2k for most routes right now and they want to cut out nip bottles? This is isn’t cost-saving, this is price gouging.

  8. Liquor is good for Greek life on colleges where men are otherwise too shy to open up and invite women back to their bedrooms for intercourse. Otherwise, like Drewry says, it’s bad for health and United is doing us all a favor.

  9. United is starting to remind me of Putin. Don’t believe anything said. Judge solely be action.

  10. I just got off premium economy on American Airlines, Philadelphia > Zurich, and they were only offering a red/white wine, stating all other alcohol was no longer available.

  11. You don’t understand – next week is United’s announcement of their industry leading Premium Sober seats. No alcohol, no recline, no electronic devices, no reading material of any kind, you just sit there and take it. And every once in awhile, a flight attendant will walk by and rap you on the knuckles with a ruler for no reason other than they know you were thinking unclean thoughts. They’re still negotiating with the union about the new habit uniforms.

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