Sorry travelers, as expected, United Airlines will require minimum stays on all flights starting in October. Gone are the halcyon days of jetting away for a business meeting after breakfast with time to spare before returning for dinner. Most United fares will now require a three-night or weekend stay, but it “will depend on the destinations involved, the price of the ticket and the length of the flight.” And, yes, you will still be charged $15 to check your first bag.
“[Business travelers will] push back big time,” said Mike Boyd, a Colorado-based aviation consultant. “It’s one thing to simply raise fares. It’s quite another to do it by imposing restrictions that appear to make it harder to conveniently fly.”
Major carriers scrapped most minimum-stay rules – put in place largely to discourage big-budget corporate travelers from snatching up the cheapest seats – at the start of the decade, although United and other airlines recently started bringing the overnight rules back piecemeal.
Friday’s changes are far more sweeping because they also apply to highly competitive routes where United goes head-to-head against lower-cost rivals such as Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways.
“What we did this week was almost across the board,” [United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski] said. “At the end of the day, it’s all about improving our profit as we combat these record high fuel prices.”
We previously suggested that travelers evade overnight requirements by buying back-to-back one-way fares, which can be cheaper than a round-trip ticket with a hotel stay.
In related news, United also raised the price of one-way tickets.
United Airlines to require minimum stays from Oct. [The Canadian Press]
PREVIOUSLY: Airlines Revive Hated Minimum Stay Fares
(AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
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@Tmoney02:
Boston to NYC is about 40 mins of airtime; that doesn’t cover the time to taxi, security, and getting to the airport.
What is pathetic is that a $12 Greyhound ticket between Port Authority and South Station takes about the same amount of time as the $60 Amtrak ticket, or 4hrs and 15mins, or that some Amtrak trips between the two cities take 6hours and 40 minutes. Amtrak’s failure is the $90 Acela trip only shaves 30 minutes off of metroliner service.
I have long believed that many of these “essential” one-day business trips were a self-perpetuating bunch of hooey. Remember that United TV commercial (I think it was United) where the CEO hands out airline tickets to all his reps and sends them off to meet with clients around the country?
The worlds of commerce, government, and education are very ably connected through computer networks and video links these days. While business trips can be fun in some ways (yes, I said fun), are they really necessary? Might they be scheduled less frequently? Probably, in many cases.
The Luddite in me likes the notion of a less hectic, more localized business model. Plus, I’m an Amtrak gal all the way. Just wish there were more sets of tracks linking more cities.
@Tmoney02: I have. When i went to BU i used to fly home to NY on the DL shuttle. For an 11:30 flight I’d leave my room at 10, get to the gate at around 11, land about 12:45 and be home around 1:30, with no traffic. That’s about 3 hours. Just the Amtrak portion from boston to new rochelle is 3.5 hours (no accela) and that doesn’t count getting to the train or getting from the train home. And, not to mention, that flying is more fun. And, i can’t use the miles I accrue on amtrak for a free ticket to hawaii; I can on DL…
whoops my math was wrong… door-to-door was about 3.5, but i don’t like sitting in one place for so long (e.g., a train ride) so i always enjoyed the “running” to catch a flight mentality anyway.
Ok, another brief lesson for you all, since the topic of hidden city ticketing has come up.
First of all, anyone who discovers hidden city ticketing and wants to use it to outmaneuver the airline into getting where they want to go, had better read up real good and understand every aspect of it, before they try it. Because if you screw up the scheme, you will be out a ticket, and out cash for a new ticket to get home. You may learn an expensive lesson otherwise.
What is hidden city ticketing? And why do some airlines prohibit using it as a “loophole”?
Airlines do not price tickets based on the number of flights you take. They price the fares based on where you’re flying to and from. This allows them to compete in markets that they otherwise have no non-stop service to or from. For example, Southwest flies from Phoenix to Baltimore nonstop (say), and American wants to be able to offer a competing fare to gain some of those potential passengers, but doesn’t have non-stop service. So it creates a competitive price for this route, sending you through Dallas DFW.
Now, it may be that flying from Dallas to Baltimore alone is even more expensive than the ticket above. This could be because there are lots of people in Dallas wanting to go to Baltimore, and are willing to pay it. While the price for PHX-DFW-BWI is less expensive because it isn’t a really popular route. So it’s less expensive, while containing more of the exact same segments. That is the strange thing that results from airlines competing for markets.
Really, the airline doesn’t care that you have to connect through DFW. It views this ticket as a contract for transportation from PHX-BWI, and its connection point is not really important.
NOW, some people living in Dallas will see this, and ask, why should I pay more for a ticket when I can get a cheaper ticket that begins in a different city and goes through Dallas?
So they will buy the PHX-DFW-BWI ticket, plan to not use the first segment and get to BWI for cheaper. This is where they are screwed, because if they fail to take that first flight, the rest of their itinerary will be canceled by the airline (it knows what you’re trying to do). And you will be made to pay a walkup full fare to get home from BWI.
Or, the airline may make a schedule change to the ticket, and maybe it has to go through Chicago instead. What will the person do? The ticket was a contract from PHX-BWI, there was no guarantee about DFW. And they are screwed for trying to game the system.
So learn how it works, and mostly, stay away from hidden city gimmicks, unless you know what you’re doing.
By the way, this is not the same as throwaway ticketing, where sometimes a roundtrip ticket (purchased in advance) is cheaper than a one way ticket. People use the outbound segment of the roundtrip, and throwaway the return. That is not against many airlines’ rules, and perfectly fine.
————————
We play by the rules the airlines set up, because it’s a voluntary agreement to fly with them, and for them to fly us. If you find it’s not working for you, then by all means come up with an alternative that you like. But the successful people will learn the rules, maximize them to their advantage and move on with life.
@kepler11: Actually you’re not quite correct. Throwaway ticketing IS “illegal” on most carriers. I think the only one it might be is on WN, but that’s because their fares are “one-way” only anyway, just like B6. DL, for one, explicitly prohibits throwaway ticketing: [www.delta.com]
No one says you can’t try, just buyer beware!
@pianos101: Actually just for the sake of clarity, neither throwaway ticketing nor hidden-city ticketing are “illegal.” They may be “prohibited” but “illegal” implies that the activity is contrary to an actual law promulgated by a government body. Here the activity is prohibited by the rules of a private carrier, so illegal is not the proper term.
Sorry, busy studying for the bar exam and in a warped mindset demanding precision…
@Nev-in-NYC: and…. that’s why “illegal” is in quotes.
Since most people (not like us Consumerists) don’t really know what an airline’s contract of carriage is i thought it’d be easier to say “illegal” and put it quotes because it’s not *atually* illegal. But i’m sure the airlines would like to make it illegal (with no quotes). 
maybe i’m way off base, but can someone explain to me why the airlines are hit so hard by fuel prices? if maintaining an adequate profit margin relies so heavily on the price of fuel, why haven’t they been protected with futures contracts all along?
@surreal:
Some have had futures contracts in place, but many have been in such financial straits that they either (a) couldn’t afford the premiums or (b) weren’t viewed as viable counterparties, and hence couldn’t participate in the options or futures markets.
@pianos101: I used to work for DL, and I can agree that throwaway ticketing isn’t approved of, although in my experience nothing is really done about it unless you do it on a regular basis (particularly when you do it with tickets associated with a skymiles account, because then it’s clearly the same person and not just an unanticipated change of plans). One thing most people don’t realize, though, is that once you’ve flown part of a ticket you are generally unable to use the remainder of the ticket’s value for anything other than a flight between those two cities, and you can’t use it towards a ticket for someone else. It was rare to talk to a person who thought they could force me to give them a refund on half a nonrefundable ticket, but I did end up talking to a lot of people who were surprised (and angry) to discover themselves severely restricted on trying to use the remainder of the ‘throwaway’ ticket.
@kepler11: You’re absolutely right. What most people don’t realize is that most airlines have an automated system that will cancel all the flights on any ticket where the passenger doesn’t show up for any part of it. Unless you can provide an extremely good reason as to why you showed up for your flight in a different city than you purchased your ticket for (and trust me, most airline employees have heard it and won’t be easily fooled) you’ll have to pay full fare to get your seat back. And that’s only if there are seats left on that flight. There are definitely ways to work the system to your advantage, but I was always surprised by the sheer number of people who seriously overestimated their own ability to do so. So you’re absolutely right – do your research before you try something like this, or else don’t bother.
@wesmills: Well one good reason I can think of that Southwest doesn’t care if you use hidden city ticketing is their open seating policy. They don’t have a list of who is supposed to be in a given seat.
If someone got off the plane a stop early, how would they know who that was unless they checked all the passengers still on the plane individually against the total list? That would be time consuming and chaos to their schedule.
Other airlines who have a roster of passengers in specific seats, it’s relatively easy for them to spot a newly empty seat on the last leg of the flight and figure out who got off early.
Dear UAL,
Please just die already. These continual half-hearted suicide attempt just alienate those of us who used to love you.
@scoosdad: Actually, the only way any airline notices when a passenger doesn’t show up for a particular leg of a flight is when that passenger either doesn’t check in at all for a flight or doesn’t have their boarding pass scanned as part of the process of boarding the flight. Even on flights where you make a stop but keep your same assigned seat you have to take your boarding pass with you to reboard the flight when it’s ready to take off again, so there’s really never a situation where passengers board a flight without first scanning their boarding pass. This applies to Southwest as much as any other airline. By the time any flight takes off everyone involved, from gate agents to flight attendants, will either know or at least have access to information about which passengers boarded the flight and which ones did not. In the event of an emergency having an accurate passenger manifesto is essential, and there are a lot of other reasons why airlines would find them useful, most notably keeping track of suspicious behavior that goes beyond just abusing the system so they can alert the proper authorities.
Probably Southwest doesn’t mind hidden city ticketing because their fare system isn’t really such that passengers have a lot to gain from doing it anyway. They figure the possible costs are outweighed by gains in customer satisfaction, which isn’t really true for traditional carriers.
Epic fail.
We flew United this past weekend with mixed results.
When we boarded in KC, we found that our bag was 53 lbs., but the agent made no mention of it being overweight. I certainly didn’t draw attention to the weight displayed on the scale; thought maybe their scale was off and they knew.
On our return flight the same bag, same contents, weighed in again at 53 lbs. But the Portland agent said it would cost an extra $100. WTF? Why did the same bag cost more on the way home? She said “Well, we fire people for not charging the fee, so I have to have $100 from you.” Uh, no. My daughter and I opened up the bag, removed a pair of jeans, and it made the cut. $100 my a** (no pun intended)
The capper on the trip was them leaving my mom’s wheelchair in Denver so that we had to wait an additional 4 hours in Portland for it arrive on the next flight out. (the airport chairs have a tall bar attached that prevents them from being removed from the terminal so we were stuck) They did provide $7 meal vouchers for each of us – oh boy! We could almost buy one appetizer at the airport restaurant. If you see a wheelchair left behind at the gate don’t you get a little worried that someone may need it at the end of the trip?
Actually , the right way to do back to back flying (home for dinner and maybe the kid’s ball game) is to book the outbound (same day) on another carrier. If there’s competition,the fare will be close (or identical). My wife does this all the time. BTW- Fuck you,United. You will not be able to devise a system that we can’t beat. That will make it even more satisfying when you finally go out of business.
@pianos101: Okay. They can increase their fares to make up for fuel costs, sure. But if they feel they can make money flying me A-B-C, then they can make even more flying my A-B. If they can’t make money, they shouldn’t sell the ticket.
If I don’t follow thru the 2nd leg I’ve PAID for, then they can sell my seat or put someone else in it who might be on standby.
Also, how about checking in for the next flight and then turning around and leaving? That would keep them from knowing you didn’t fly. The great thing about that is that it’ll still leave someone bumped or waiting for the next flight in standby while an empty seat flies on to the destination.
@SMSDHubbard: I know I know. I don’t disagree with you all. I’m just playing devil’s advocate… But still in the end airlines are private entities and until the government forces them to do otherwise they can do whatever they want (even if we scream really loud).
And if you check-in but don’t board, they’ll know too. As The Boyg mentioned, some airlines might not care that much unless that actually catch you with your FF number or something, but even if you “check-in” and don’t board the plane they know you’re not there. They know everything…
@pianos101: So if I want to do throwaway ticketing on Delta (or any other airline) without risking getting in trouble with it, couldn’t I just check in for the return trip online and not actually show up?
@MissPeacock: By requiring the Saturday night stay, it gets more business travelers flying on Sundays, which is when vacationers typically return as well. This prevents the airline from having to fly half-empty planes on Saturday, thus keeping down the costs per customer for the airline. And for the people who choose that one way Saturday ticket, they’ll end up paying more than they used to.
@t325: The Boyg might know more, since he/she used to work for DL. But in either case:
Checking-in and not boarding is the SAME THING as not showing up at all. Checking-in and not boarding still cancels the current leg of that ticket (and any other legs as well). The “final count” is done after boarding and who’s boarding passes are scanned. Although this list is compared to who actually checked-in, actually boarding is what counts.
@dragonfire1481:
This is a common problem to people working in organizations that have to deal with people who are not a part of that organization:
They expect people who have little or no stake in the success of their organization, and who have no way of knowing how things work internally, to both know and care about that organization’s problems. They probably expect this because every person they work with knows and cares about these things and DAMMIT WHY DON’T YOU?
When people in charge make decisions while thinking like this, things will happen that probably seem perfectly reasonable to them but are like WTF to everyone else.
@pianos101: True, I didn’t think of that.
Although it may not be SOP elsewhere, but when I flew Continental out of STL, they didn’t even scan boarding passes. They just collected them. Perhaps they scan them later, to speed things up. But it seems like a huge mess waiting to happen. The plane was going to Cleveland, and someone got on the plane thinking it was going to Newark. Luckily, she realized it before the plane took off, so she was able to get back into the terminal and go to the right gate, but I’d imagine that if her boarding pass was scanned, the computer would’ve thrown up a nice, big error. Or maybe the gate agents should pay closer attention to this stuff. Or maybe passengers need to pay closer attention and learn to read the big ass sign above the gate that said “Flight #### to Cleveland”
And when I flew AA out of Madison, WI, they just ripped them up in half and gave you the stub, like they do at the movies. Another huge mess waiting to happen.
@t325: Yeah i’ve had that too. But rest assured, they cross-check (no pun intended
) the list before the plane leaves. That’s how they are able to page specific people to tell them to hurry up (another reason that checkin-in and not boarding would be difficult). Just in case something happens to the plane (god forbid) wouldn’t you want to make sure you’re searching for the right number of people (based on boarding, not checking in?)…
Here’s a novel idea — Why don’t the airlines just raise rates to something sustainable and drop this shell game bullshit? It’s how business in the rest of the market works. I’ve raised my rates because of increased costs. Client grumbling was minimal and my profit margins are increasing. The race to the bottom is always a bad, unsustainable business strategy.
@MissPeacock: The goal isn’t to force people to stay weekends at all – most people who are not traveling for business won’t have problems meeting these requirements anyway. This is a way to milk the people flying business back and forth in rapid succession – either by hitting them with the higher round trips that violate their 3day/weekend stay rules, or by getting them with their newly raised one way fares. And the thing is, most customers won’t foot that bill anyway – in the end it’s their employer that will, an employer with substantially deeper pockets than the average traveler.
@FLConsumer:
I’m tired of this “why don’t they just raise fares” silliness. Don’t you understand the pressures of pricing?
Why doesn’t McDonalds become a buffet and charge one price so I don’t have to pay for each individual thing? Why doesn’t the gas station have an all you can pump policy, so that we don’t have to see how many individual gallons we’re using, and being nickel and dimed?
Do you see why it’s silly to keep asking “why don’t they just raise fares”?
If you don’t like *seeing* the extra charges, then don’t use those services, or just cover your eyes when the bill comes. That’ll be just like them raising the fare. In the meantime, I, who don’t use all those extra service, will still get a cheaper ticket compared to you.
@FLConsumer: As kepler11 said, this is easier said than done. Go to kayak.com and search for fares between two cities that are served by many carriers (legacies and LCC’s). You’ll see that the lowest price fares are listed at the top. Well, if one carrier combines all the fees into their fare price, they’ll be at the bottom of the list (and cause more of a “sticker shock” reaction). Airlines, obviously, want to be at the top of the list. And, when you pay a lesser fare, then shell out some more money at the airport, it doesn’t *feel* like you’re paying a higher price ticket because the cost is spread out over different times (until the credit card bill comes…).
Just to keep the conversation going … so, the answer is that when the maximum amount an airline could charge (regulation) is set by the government, this = massive profits and superior customer service? But when companies were freed to set their own prices profitability fell into consistent red.
I’m trying to wrap my head around that. Government mandated pricing = a time of great profits, whereas freed to pursue their own best interests airlines screwed themselves into bankruptcy?
Hmmm.
@BlackFlag55:
Uhh…did it every cross your mind that, even without adjusting for inflation, airfares have fallen?
As for your theory that airplanes haven’t changed…fly up front in a NW DC-9, then in an A321…. Also, one caries 50% mpre pax and both use the same amount of fuel.
@BlackFlag55: Basically it seems that way… Re-regulation definitely opens up a WHOLE other can of worms that would never get through the halls of congress and the airline lobbies, but there are definite benefits to partial re-regulation…
[www.airliners.net]
One approach I saw used by business travelers who went to the same city for weeks on end:
Book a one way flight to your destination city for Monday. Book a round trip flight for Thursday or Friday, returning to your non-home city on Monday (giving you a Saturday stayover in your home city). Rinse, repeat.