Background:
A couple of months ago I wrote about how I booked a flight to Denver on United Basic Economy. I was really worried about getting a bad seat, but I was happy when I actually got one the best remaining the seats on the plane! My assignment was 14C (Aisle) and my friends got 14E and 14F. I was so happy we got great seats! I just switched my seat with the person in 14D (Aisle), and then all my friends could sit together in the same side of the row. Of course, I love my window seats, so I switched the aisle with my friend. 🙂
Flight Details:
United Airlines Flight 744
Denver (DEN) to Los Angeles (LAX)
Seat: 14F- Window- Economy
Aircraft: Boeing 737-900
Scheduled Departure: 2:26 PM
Actual Departure: On Time
Scheduled Arrival: 3:56 PM
Arrival to Gate: On Time
The Flight:
Boarding, First Impressions And The Seat
Just this past June I flew on a similar 737-900 on United. I like the plane as it had nice new leather cushions. Just like last time there was no seat-back entertainment. There is wifi and of course stream to your device! The legroom was sufficient for the 2 hr flight, and my friends also felt that the seat was decently comfortable.
Service:
The service was great on this flight and I chatted with a few of the San Francisco based crew before and during the flight! We got a drink service + pretzels.
In Flight Entertainment:
I love how on United I could text using iMessage on the wifi without paying for wifi 🙂
You could stream to your device for free, and there was a pretty good selection of movies! Wifi wasn’t a horrible price, $8.99 for the whole flight.
You could use Mileage Plus miles to buy internet access. The costs were: 1hr- $5.99/930 miles or for the whole flight at $8.99/1,390 miles.
So, if you value each Mileage Plus mile at $0.0064 knock yourself out and use miles to buy wifi.
Please don’t 🙂 Mileage Plus miles aren’t worth that little. Unless of course if your miles are expiring and you don’t travel much, you might as well use them. (or if you want to “reset” the expiration date of your miles so they are valid for another 18 months 🙂).
THE VERDICT:
Overall, I was very happy with my first United Basic Economy experience. Not the worst way to fly for a short hop.
Happy travels,
theresorttraveler
MY COLORADO TRIP REPORT:
Check out the rest of my Colorado 2017 Fall Trip here!
- I Survived My First Spirit Airlines Flight (LAX-DEN)
- Review: United Club LAX
- Colorado Springs Marriott
- Review: Car2Go Carsharing
- Doubletree Denver Stapleton North
- United Basic Economy (DEN-LAX)
I had a feeling that some of those 739 B/E Aerospace Pinnacle seats had the literature pocket at the top of the seat, and that is where I like to clip in my iPad as I use a ClamCase, which (if you invert the case) works nicely as a device holder for Personal Device Entertainment. It is disappointing to see that United has removed them in lieu of a basic blue cushion. Is there any reason as to why they did that? Is there a way to tell which aircraft have the cushion seatbacks and which have the upper literature pocket?
Hmm that’s a good question! I am not sure, sorry.
Thanks for reading!