At a time that airline fees seem only limited by airline executives’ imaginations, it’s hard to believe that it was less than 10 years that one of the nicest perks for being a United elite-level frequent flier was no same-day change fees, if space was available.
Now, United, albeit one of the last majors to change their policy, even charges for “voluntary” standby. (Translation, when the passenger wants to change, not when they’ve missed a connection or had a flight canceled.)
The charge, instituted April 10, with no fanfare, is explained on the United website as follows: “To continue offering our customers flexibility and choice in their travel experiences, and to make planning easier, we are implementing changes to several fees.”
A United Executive premier client called me to tell me about his experience with the policy last weekend, where he got to the airport early for a sold out flight, found there were seats left on an earlier flight, and the agent refused to waive the fee.
A series of emails between him and the airline basically resulted in United’s saying “We needed to make this change to keep our fares lower for you.”
Now, in general, the standby fee to me is one of the more annoying and silly rules in the industry. An airline seat is valueless the moment a plane takes off, an open seat for a future flight might be salable.
Beyond that, as my client and I discussed, United loves to trumpet perks for their most frequent fliers, why not include one that could make the airline money.
Giving away economy-plus seats could cost United money when regular fliers want to buy them, free baggage allowances certainly cost them something. But standby? Sometimes the policy of charging actually costs money.
For examples, in this case, the client grumpily paid the fee. But I have had other clients decide to just wait for their original flight, sometimes even when they would be reimbursed, because they didn’t want to stretch the company travel budget.
In one case, a family of four decided to wait an hour and a half to save the $200 total standby fee. Then, appropriately, the airline had to ask for volunteers to accept a travel voucher for giving up seats on that later flight.
Waiving the fee for frequent fliers could have other advantages. Many elite fliers travel light, so there wouldn’t be as many checked baggage issues. Plus, one way to assure that benefit to the airlines would be to allow free standby only for those with (limited) carry-on bags.
In addition, from a revenue standpoint with United, elite fliers usually have economy-plus seats. Which they might or might not still be able to obtain on an earlier flight. In any case, their original seat that they would have given up to fly on an earlier flight standby could thus be resold at an additional profit.
On other carriers without economy plus, elites still get the front of the plane and exit seats that others often have to pay to have assigned.
All of this, too, is in “normal” situations. Any time an airline gets a passenger off the ground towards their destination that is one less potential problem in case of a later weather delay or mechanical problem.
From a customer relations standpoint, elites also usually get placated with more compensation when they do get stranded, so there’s another potential savings.
In any case, free “elite” standby, even on a limited basis, seems like a reasonable, simple perk and one that might actually draw business to an airline. Wonder if any of the majors will try it?
Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)
