Thread: Inquiring minds want to know

Originally Posted by mrs767er

LHR $192 ($181 to EWR)
FRA $135 ($120 to EWR)
BCN $34 ($41 to EWR)
NRT $43 ($31 to LAX)
CUN $71 ($41 to IAH, neener neener neener)
BOM $127 ($36 to EWR, what the crap?)
SYD $96 ($81 to LAX, possibly the only true orig-dest overlap we have in this whole comparison except possibly for NRT-LAX if you happened to do that)

Huh, I always assumed DL had lower departure taxes than us. Maybe this whole time I was only looking at ES, since I vaguely remember asking about that once upon a time.

BOM had overnights in EU (AMS or CDG) hence taxes for 2departures/taxes
The domestic portion doesn't matter what arrival city--no mileage costs.
I did NRT/DTW--we have 8 gateway options.
I did all of my flights out of CVG so there were airport facility charges @ gateway cities on return? I don't know. I don't want to redo them all! What would be better comparison destinations? Maybe I'll ck some others like S or C America?

Yeah, I forgot to update this thread! Those questions were pretty scary, but I think those ones got a pretty resounding "hell no!" (pardon my french). You can definitely tell that there's quite a bit of give and take in priority when they made this system, but I think they've got a pretty good compromise going on for the most part. For those not aware, United has literally 10 different boarding priorities, though 1 of them (SA9, fee waived first class for those taking lowest priority) is rarely used.

I saw that SA9 fee waived thing, but didn't quite get it. I got boared reading about it somewhere in between the phrases and moved on. I usually travel with vacation passes when I go, hardly ever use anything else. You are right. United has alot of boarding priorities, flying companions, spouses, dependents, retirees, buddys not family, then there is declaring a "MUST RIDE" and OAL pax, positive space, same gender pass riders, ......You have got to dig deep on some of these charts to see where you stand prioritywise. Biggest change between our prior merger is the spouse unaccompanied travel thing at the same seniority rate as the employee and the retirees. I stick with the notion that an active employee should go ahead of a spouse of an employee unless they are being accompanied. Retirees, whom have all the time in the world to travel should not go ahead of an active employee.

But I've accepted this a while back, don't try and change the game later to degrade me further in travel priorities.

Basically, with an SA9, you (as the employee, pass riders can't do this) are saying that you're willing to risk going to the bottom of the standby list, and if there's still a seat in F by the time you get called, you won't have to pay for it. Good when there's a really open flight without too many nonrevs. I've done it a few times, and can think of 3 times that I did get F (ORD-MSP, DEN-ASE, and MCI-DEN). All but the last one I even had F to myself

Yeah, they'll still put you in whatever they can (assuming there is something). If nothing in F, they can still put you in Business with no charge. Or Y, if you're unlucky