A Daytime p.s. Business Experience

This year, I’ve largely shifted my New York-San Francisco/Los Angeles trips to American as I’ve been greatly enjoying a phenomenal complimentary upgrade rate.  With my booked September travel completing my Executive Platinum re-qualification, I’ve begun to switch my attention to United.

For most of my travels, I’ve been departing out of Newark and La Guardia for reasons of destination, price, schedule, and the eligibility for complimentary upgrades.  Last weekend, I was flying to San Francisco on p.s.  In an effort to conserve my upgrade instruments, I had confirmed an upgrade for myself only on my redeye return.  Nonetheless, my flight was oversold in coach so I was able to pick up an operational upgrade to business class.

United 397
New York Kennedy (JFK) – San Francisco (SFO)
Saturday, August 4th 2012
Depart:  8:18AM
Arrive: 10:53AM
Duration:  5 hours, 35 minutes
Aircraft: Boeing 757-222ER (N517UA)
Seat: 11C (Business Class)

For now, the hard product on p.s. is unchanged, although it is due to adopt the Continental lie-flat business class product and lose its first class cabin late this year.

My seatmate was no where to be found until two minutes before the door closed, so I wound up using his seat as my example of a business class seat (as I had already settled in and thrown my pillow and blanket into the overhead bin):

Sadly, the “new” United has “aligned” its on-board products including its menus.

Thanks to “alignment,” the menu looks unsurprisingly similar to my Newark to San Francisco flight in May in format.  While the “p.s.” designator is mostly just another marketing term (American uses the word “Flagship” to refer to its service along thes routes), it is still disappointing to see it removed from the product.

My return to this trip was an uneventful redeye back on p.s. to JFK.  While I’m disappointed by the decline of the p.s. soft product and the lack of complimentary upgrades on the route, I still prefer the p.s. business class seats to those on American.