We’ve known for quite some time that United (and other U.S. airlines) have been planning to introduce what they call segmented fares in their premium cabins — i.e., a basic business class product.
And now, United’s begun putting these fares on sale, at least for some flights. Here’s a look at what you need to know and whether it’s a good deal.
United Puts Tiered Premium Fares on Sale
United Airlines has begun selling its new tiered premium fares in both the Polaris and Premium Plus cabins. Effectively, what this means is that United will sell you a less expensive premium fare, but you have to give up perks and benefits that used to come standard on all premium tickets.
It now offers 3 separate fares for premium tickets: Base, Standard, and Flexible, with Base fares offering the least and Flexible the most. Here’s what that looks like in the Polaris cabin:
As you can see, Base fares require you to make sacrifices in exchange for saving money. You pay extra to select your seat, you’re only allowed to check 1 bag for free instead of 2, you only have access to the United Club and not the Polaris Lounge, you’re not permitted to make changes or cancel your flight for a refund, and you can’t upgrade to a Polaris Studio suite.
Additionally, Base Polaris fares earnmiles at reduced rates. If you’re not a United MileagePlus elite member and don’t have one of the carrier’s co-branded credit cards, you earn nothing for your flight. If you don’t have a co-branded card but you have elite status, you earn up to 6 miles per $1 spent on your ticket, depending on your elite tier.
If you have a co-branded card and elite status, you earn 3 to 9 miles per $1 spent, depending on your elite tier. Finally, Base Polaris fares are eligible only to earn Premier Qualifying Points (PQPs), not Premier Qualifying Flights (PQFs), making it harder to achieve or requalify for elite status with these fares.
You can see a similar pattern in the Premium Plus cabin:
Base Premium Plus fares don’t include seat selection, allow only 1 free checked bag instead of 2, are more restrictive, aren’t eligible for upgrades, and earn a much more limited number of miles.
How Much Do United’s Basic Polaris Tickets Cost?
United has just begun rolling out its tiered fare structure for premium tickets, so it’s not available yet on all routes and flights. However, we were able to find a few examples to get an idea of what pricing looks like.
Here’s a Polaris flight between Newark (EWR), New Jersey, and Lima (LIM), Peru:
For this flight, the Base fare is $1,781 one-way, the Standard fare is $1,981, and the Flexible fare is $3,909. Unless they need the most flexible option and want to earn the most miles possible, most people will be satisfied with the Standard fare, as it’s essentially the business class experience we’ve grown accustomed to over time. In this case, there’s a $200 difference between Base and Standard.
We don’t have any way of knowing what a Polaris ticket would have cost if the tiers hadn’t been implemented, but we suspect that United isn’t discounting Base fares at all and is instead pricing them at the previous lowest price while charging more to step up to Standard or Flexible fares.
Note, too, that different routes have different pricing, so it could cost more (or less) to step up from a Base to a Standard fare, depending on where you’re flying and when.
Final Thoughts
United’s tiered pricing structure for premium fares has arrived, and it’ll roll out to more routes and flights soon. We’ll continue to learn more about pricing as this structure proliferates across the airline’s network, but if you’re planning to book a premium seat on a United flight, be prepared to pay more for perks like complimentary seat selection and access to the Polaris Lounge.
Unfortunately, we don’t think it’ll be too long before United’s competitors American and Delta roll out similar tiered pricing structures of their own.