{"id":19474,"date":"2011-02-18T17:06:21","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T21:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/?p=19474"},"modified":"2011-02-18T17:06:21","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T21:06:21","slug":"united-continental-merger-update-economy-plus-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/united-continental-merger-update-economy-plus-lives\/","title":{"rendered":"United Continental Merger Update: Economy Plus Lives"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the big questions surrounding the merger between United and Continental was whether or not the merged carrier would adopt the Economy Plus seating that United has been featuring.\u00a0\u00a0 United has basically added 5 inches of legroom to the first few rows of economy.\u00a0 Continental did not.\u00a0 This week, they announced that Continental will indeed add an Economy Plus section to their planes, starting next year<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 As is usual at United, the migration will happen at a snails pace, years into the future.\u00a0 United is still replacing their business and first classes that they announced years ago.\u00a0\u00a0 In this way, they get all the benefits of marketing, with none of the cost of actually refurbishing their airplanes.\u00a0\u00a0 To this day, it is a crap shoot\u00a0 when you book a ticket on United as to whether or not you will receive a competitive premium product, or something more suited to the 80s.<\/p>\n

What I Don’t Like About Economy Plus<\/strong><\/p>\n

At first, they merely allowed their Premiers to sit in E+.\u00a0 Later, they started selling it at the time of purchase, check in, and even at the gate.\u00a0\u00a0 Harsh warnings were introduced that anyone caught sitting in an otherwise vacant E+ seat without having paid for it would be ejected from the cabin while in flight, and possibly ingested by the jet engine.\u00a0\u00a0 This just added another layer confusion, confrontation, and upsell that United fliers were forced to endure.\u00a0\u00a0 By restricting unpaid access to empty seats, United effectively created a 3 class domestic cabin with a 4 class international one.\u00a0 The only difference between E+ and E- was the extra 5 inches of legroom.\u00a0 Frankly, 5 inches is a lot.\u00a0\u00a0 It is almost possible to exit your seat with the tray table down, and E+ sometimes seems lengthier than even an exit row.\u00a0 At the same time, the E- seats remain as cramped as ever, with a 31 inch pitch.<\/p>\n

Call me a commie bastard, but I prefer Southwest’s arrangement with a more reasonable 33″ pitch for everyone.\u00a0\u00a0 I like extra legroom, but I don’t like the confusion, upsell, and threats that accompany the whole E+ equation.\u00a0\u00a0 The entire philosophy of United seems to be the monitization of even the most trivial perks.\u00a0 They actually sell priority boarding by itself.\u00a0 This goes over as well for me as it would if a restaurant started charging for silverware, tap water, or napkins.<\/p>\n

So congratulations to all the United and Continental elites who have been depending on E+ to avoid the scourge of E-.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t fault you for liking it, but United will have change a lot more to win back my business.<\/p>\n

Just don’t expect Continental to finish converting their all of their aircraft before a manned mission to occurs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the big questions surrounding the merger between United and Continental was whether or not the merged carrier would adopt the Economy Plus seating that United has been featuring.\u00a0\u00a0 United has basically added 5 inches of legroom to the first few rows of economy.\u00a0 Continental did not.\u00a0 This week, they announced that Continental will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nUnited Continental Merger Update: Economy Plus Lives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.askmrcreditcard.com\/news\/united-continental-merger-update-economy-plus-lives\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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