All the three major US carriers (American, Delta and United) have introduced Basic Economy fares over the last few years. These fares are now available on a lot of their routes. Basic means that these fares provide certain restrictions for customers when booking.
No seat assignment or upgrades
If you are the person that likes to assign themselves a seat this fare is not for you. If you like to bring on a full size carry-on bag this fare is not for you when flying United. American and Delta still allow it, but you are in the last boarding group and chances are you will need to gate check it. If you have status on an airline with Basic Economy you will not be able to join any of the benefits besides an earlier boarding group.
Needed for competition and market segmentation
All three carriers claim they needed to introduce these fares to better compete with low cost carriers like Frontier and Spirit. They also claim this gives people more options to book at the price point they are comfortable with. In general we have seen price differences of $25 per one way on domestic flights, but it can also be significantly more. Therefore buyer aware and make the right choice for you.
Basic Economy after the New Year
We had stayed away from Basic Economy for all the aforementioned reasons. However when we celebrated the New Year in Florida we decided to give Basic Economy a try on our way home. We had flown down on points, but on January 2nd there were no reward flights available. When I search for flights I usually start with a broad search on Google Flights. I have reviewed the powerful engine before here.
$50 one way flights for the win
While looking for flights I saw that American offered one way flight from Jacksonville to Chicago for $50 per person all in. This now sounds like a heck of a deal. Just for due diligence I always check regular economy prices which were at over $200 at the time. Basic Economy here we come. This would also be our first flight on American in a while. I also knew that thanks to my American Airlines credit card we wouldn’t be in the last group, but most likely be able to bring our carry-on bags on board.
Check-In was a delight
When we checked in American first offers you to pay for select seats if you feeling the urge to not take any chances. We felt good with just assuming we would get two seats together. Worst case scenario would be for us to be separated for a few hours. After finished check-in we were able to see our assigned seats. To our delight we were assigned two Aisle seats in an Exit row. Score! While technically not next to each other, we were ok with the aisle in between us. For the exact same seats American would have charged us $41 a person just a few moments before. Even any kind of seat assignment would have run us $23 per person. Therefore for us this was huge to score extra legroom seats and certainly made the experience a nice one for us.
Summary
While in general I would always stay away from Basic Economy. On this trip the price difference was just too big. At the end of the day I am aware that we got really lucky, but also shows that Basic Economy is not always a bad idea. This couldn’t have worked out better for us and for some miles and $50 a quick getaway to Florida was absolutely worth it.
Anyone have any experiences with Basic Economy that they want to share?
