3 ms·

First: thanks for the link, interesting to know that there's kind-of something out there for this. From the FAQ on the linked page: > Who can purchase Economy

by ashark 10y ago

First: thanks for the link, interesting to know that there's kind-of something out there for this. From the FAQ on the linked page: > Who can purchase Economy Plus seating? All customers who are not traveling on a Basic Economy ticket may purchase Economy Plus seating subject to availability. Advance complimentary access to Economy Plus is available to Premier® Platinum members and higher (for themselves and up to eight companions), and Premier Gold members (for themselves and one companion). Premier Silver members and one companion enjoy complimentary access to Economy Plus seating, when available, upon check-in. I just... what is this even? How about just putting the legroom on ticket sale data—including for sales on 3rd party sites—and selling different ones at different prices? I don't want to become an expert on all this weird tricking-you-into-spending-more-money-with-us-than-you-should-if-you're-not-super-careful crap for every airline I might fly with, I just want to buy a ticket and fly every now and then, and I'm willing to pay for more legroom. How would I even begin to comparison shop for this upgrade vs. other airlines? I know the answer is "you're not supposed to because they're trying to screw you" but that's an awful answer. This is precisely where regulation is useful: transparency in WTF you're buying and standards in how it's presented so competition can work its magic without consumers having to learn a bunch of otherwise-useless junk (the worst of which is "how to navigate systems and jargon that are specific to one vendor") in order to confidently make a simple transaction.

true_religion 10y ago
Airlines are optimized for frequent fliers, which is why their copy isn't very approachable if you are thinking from the point of view of making arbitrary choices. Frequent fliers don't do that generally. They operate on making decisions that will last at least a year like what ticket class or flier program to use.
- cardiffspaceman 10y ago
  > Optimized for frequent fliers Rather, frequent fliers out of necessity soon learn these things, and start to speak the language(s) that the airlines use instead of language that muggles understand. Even frequent flyers don't always instantly know why I don't fly in row 1, though I do fly first class. It's easier to know what you're getting when you buy a TV than it is to do so when buying an airline ticket, even if you buy the TV on impulse, and even though TV vendors are looking to extract as much as they can from TV buyers.
  - ashark 10y ago
    Exactly. A ticket for a seat on an aircraft has no justification for being more complex or confusing to buy than, say, an apple. It ought to be way less complex than apples, in fact, since they can rot or suffer from poor storage and so on.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      It is that simple. Punch in your departure and destination airports, click click click, done. You want to control every detail of the result while also spending as little money as possible? That takes some effort, with both flights and apples. Actually, getting the best price for a flight is easier than with apples. I'd have to spend all day calling (or visiting!) stores in my area to see who has the best price for apples, since most stores don't make that information available online in any form. Accomplishing the same for a flight takes literally thirty seconds.
chiph 10y ago
seatguru.com is where I go to check seat dimensions. Spirit has a seat pitch (the distance between rows) around 28", two inches shorter than major carriers. And few of their seats recline. You get what you pay for.. I can't fit in there - I'm 6' tall (183cm), so I fly Delta and buy their Comfort+ seat upgrade. But I'll also look at their 1st class fare, because after checking a bag and getting the upgrade, sometimes going all the way to First is only like $100 more (and the bag check is free, and you're first off the plane, and first to get your bag at the carousel).
joelrunyon 10y ago
Not to be rude, but it doesn't sound like you fly much. You can buy economy plus unless you got a super discounted flight. Frequent fliers get first access depending on their level. Just use google.com/flights (lists leg room data), or just hit the "i" mark on each fare and you can usually see the actual leg room on the ticket. Don't bother using aggregators to buy the ticket. They're useful at finding fares, but the same rates are usually available through the airline's site as well.
nostrademons 10y ago
Airlines don't want you to comparison shop for amenities, because then those will become a race to the bottom as well, and airlines will gradually reduce the amount of legroom available in Economy+ until it's just barely above regular Economy. Anyway, basically all the major airlines except Southwest offer this. It's Economy+ on United, Delta Comfort on Delta, Premium Economy on American, Main Cabin Select on Virgin America, Even More on JetBlue, etc. I found this out through looking at the front page of each of their websites. Prices range from $40-50 (additional) per seat per leg. You can select it upon seat selection at the airline's website (which is where an aggregator will take you, anyway): the extra economy+ seats that are available are shown together with the price for the update, and you just have to click on them and it will adjust your fare accordingly. So now you know. Incidentally, this is pretty good evidence of this subthread's point: you expected to be told all of this by going through a 3rd-party aggregator where you can search by cost. If you are representative of the average American consumer (which is probably pretty likely), it's no wonder the airlines compete on cost.
- ashark 10y ago
  > So now you know. Incidentally, this is pretty good evidence of this subthread's point: you expected to be told all of this by going through a 3rd-party aggregator where you can search by cost. If you are representative of the average American consumer (which is probably pretty likely), it's no wonder the airlines compete on cost. They should probably work to ensure it's possible to accurately filter by other criteria on aggregators then, if they actually care about getting people to shop based on other features. They choose not to make any effort there, because even small levels of obfuscation enable extraction of rents. It weakens the ability of the market to improve quality and reduce cost, the more difficult it is to gauge quality. If they cared the tickets would be per-seat and tell you the properties of that seat in some machine-parseable manner, not be upgrades (that change the seat you're in) that may or may not be available at all depending on how you bought your ticket, whether you're part of some special program, and so on. Ah, travel—the one context in which not-at-all-rich people are encouraged to temporarily act like petty nobility. Almost certainly another trick to extract more money from people. No accident it's also an industry that's managed to make something inherently amazing and awe-inspiring resemble one of the only-moderately-unbearable parts of hell. At least with your Amex Platinum card and all those points you've racked up you can be baron in the Fourth Circle for a day.
mikeash 10y ago
I don't think we need more regulation here. All of this information is discoverable without a huge amount of effort. Third-party aggregators may not make it obvious, but that's their fault, not the airlines'. That the aggregators don't bother showing this info either means they're ignoring an important market segment (in which case, business opportunity for you!) or few people care about this stuff.
gertef 10y ago
It's not that hard. You don't need to dig into the implemetnation, just look at the interface: when you book a ticket, you are presented with the option of purchasing upgraded seating (economy plus, bulkhead, exit row -- not just on United, it's on most airliens). If you don't like the options available, cancel your purchase (within 24h of purchase)
rconti 10y ago
I'm not remotely clear what you're confused about. Economy Plus is a simple purchase-time option on United flights. When you choose your seat, they have all of the options right there. I otherwise agree with the sentiment that the data should be more available (I spend way too much time on SeatGuru trying to find plane/seat info before booking), and I desperately wish we had an option to pay for a few more inches of leg and elbow room (NOT just legroom), but Economy Plus is about as straightforward a program as it gets in the airline industry.

by ashark 10y ago

true_religion 10y ago

Airlines are optimized for frequent fliers, which is why their copy isn't very approachable if you are thinking from the point of view of making arbitrary choices. Frequent fliers don't do that generally. They operate on making decisions that will last at least a year like what ticket class or flier program to use.

cardiffspaceman 10y ago
> Optimized for frequent fliers Rather, frequent fliers out of necessity soon learn these things, and start to speak the language(s) that the airlines use instead of language that muggles understand. Even frequent flyers don't always instantly know why I don't fly in row 1, though I do fly first class. It's easier to know what you're getting when you buy a TV than it is to do so when buying an airline ticket, even if you buy the TV on impulse, and even though TV vendors are looking to extract as much as they can from TV buyers.
- ashark 10y ago
  Exactly. A ticket for a seat on an aircraft has no justification for being more complex or confusing to buy than, say, an apple. It ought to be way less complex than apples, in fact, since they can rot or suffer from poor storage and so on.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    It is that simple. Punch in your departure and destination airports, click click click, done. You want to control every detail of the result while also spending as little money as possible? That takes some effort, with both flights and apples. Actually, getting the best price for a flight is easier than with apples. I'd have to spend all day calling (or visiting!) stores in my area to see who has the best price for apples, since most stores don't make that information available online in any form. Accomplishing the same for a flight takes literally thirty seconds.

chiph 10y ago

seatguru.com is where I go to check seat dimensions. Spirit has a seat pitch (the distance between rows) around 28", two inches shorter than major carriers. And few of their seats recline. You get what you pay for.. I can't fit in there - I'm 6' tall (183cm), so I fly Delta and buy their Comfort+ seat upgrade. But I'll also look at their 1st class fare, because after checking a bag and getting the upgrade, sometimes going all the way to First is only like $100 more (and the bag check is free, and you're first off the plane, and first to get your bag at the carousel).

joelrunyon 10y ago

Not to be rude, but it doesn't sound like you fly much. You can buy economy plus unless you got a super discounted flight. Frequent fliers get first access depending on their level. Just use google.com/flights (lists leg room data), or just hit the "i" mark on each fare and you can usually see the actual leg room on the ticket. Don't bother using aggregators to buy the ticket. They're useful at finding fares, but the same rates are usually available through the airline's site as well.

nostrademons 10y ago

Airlines don't want you to comparison shop for amenities, because then those will become a race to the bottom as well, and airlines will gradually reduce the amount of legroom available in Economy+ until it's just barely above regular Economy. Anyway, basically all the major airlines except Southwest offer this. It's Economy+ on United, Delta Comfort on Delta, Premium Economy on American, Main Cabin Select on Virgin America, Even More on JetBlue, etc. I found this out through looking at the front page of each of their websites. Prices range from $40-50 (additional) per seat per leg. You can select it upon seat selection at the airline's website (which is where an aggregator will take you, anyway): the extra economy+ seats that are available are shown together with the price for the update, and you just have to click on them and it will adjust your fare accordingly. So now you know. Incidentally, this is pretty good evidence of this subthread's point: you expected to be told all of this by going through a 3rd-party aggregator where you can search by cost. If you are representative of the average American consumer (which is probably pretty likely), it's no wonder the airlines compete on cost.

ashark 10y ago
> So now you know. Incidentally, this is pretty good evidence of this subthread's point: you expected to be told all of this by going through a 3rd-party aggregator where you can search by cost. If you are representative of the average American consumer (which is probably pretty likely), it's no wonder the airlines compete on cost. They should probably work to ensure it's possible to accurately filter by other criteria on aggregators then, if they actually care about getting people to shop based on other features. They choose not to make any effort there, because even small levels of obfuscation enable extraction of rents. It weakens the ability of the market to improve quality and reduce cost, the more difficult it is to gauge quality. If they cared the tickets would be per-seat and tell you the properties of that seat in some machine-parseable manner, not be upgrades (that change the seat you're in) that may or may not be available at all depending on how you bought your ticket, whether you're part of some special program, and so on. Ah, travel—the one context in which not-at-all-rich people are encouraged to temporarily act like petty nobility. Almost certainly another trick to extract more money from people. No accident it's also an industry that's managed to make something inherently amazing and awe-inspiring resemble one of the only-moderately-unbearable parts of hell. At least with your Amex Platinum card and all those points you've racked up you can be baron in the Fourth Circle for a day.

mikeash 10y ago

I don't think we need more regulation here. All of this information is discoverable without a huge amount of effort. Third-party aggregators may not make it obvious, but that's their fault, not the airlines'. That the aggregators don't bother showing this info either means they're ignoring an important market segment (in which case, business opportunity for you!) or few people care about this stuff.

gertef 10y ago

It's not that hard. You don't need to dig into the implemetnation, just look at the interface: when you book a ticket, you are presented with the option of purchasing upgraded seating (economy plus, bulkhead, exit row -- not just on United, it's on most airliens). If you don't like the options available, cancel your purchase (within 24h of purchase)

rconti 10y ago

I'm not remotely clear what you're confused about. Economy Plus is a simple purchase-time option on United flights. When you choose your seat, they have all of the options right there. I otherwise agree with the sentiment that the data should be more available (I spend way too much time on SeatGuru trying to find plane/seat info before booking), and I desperately wish we had an option to pay for a few more inches of leg and elbow room (NOT just legroom), but Economy Plus is about as straightforward a program as it gets in the airline industry.