Hi
Everyone, I know upgrades are a hot topic here lately. To be honest, we’ve been struggling for some time to determine where, if at all, there was a break in the process. I realize that this post could be made in response to any number of examples and threads, but, I’ve posted it here because it was ultimately
ORH-LIH’s example that helped us find the needle in the haystack. Admittedly, it’s taken us some time, but, here’s what we found:
- Upgrade offer logic is working correctly. In all the cases we’ve researched to date – including this one - we found that the logic behind the upgrade offer is working correctly. Specifically, when there are more front cabin seats than there are Elite customers, the lower, discounted fee-based offer is being made. When there are more Elites than seats, the offer is based on the difference between the fare class purchased and the lowest fare class that qualifies the customer to confirm an upgraded seat.
- In some markets, we’re not using the right average fares. In this specific case, given the above offer logic, the difference in fare was based on M class since the customer is Platinum. In this case, we used an estimated T fare class price of $328. We then looked at the range for M and found that the minimum estimate was $279.
Hey, subtract these, and we should be paying you to sit up front! Well, there is a failsafe to prevent that. In each market we also have a minimum default amount. In this specific case, it was $99 for Platinum members, $129 for Gold/Silver members and $539 for general members.
Obiously this doesn’t make any sense – especially since, as was pointed out in the thread, there is no published M fare in the market. So what happened?
Here’s what should have happened: When there is no corresponding fare in the market, the calculation should be built off the next higher fare (in this case B). In the EWR-PHX market, if we used the right calculation, the upgrade offer for a Platinum member who purchased a T fare would be $299.
Here’s what did happen (this is the item we’ll work to correct): Our system used inaccurate city codes. Specifically, in this case, our system pulled fares in the NYC-PHX market instead of the EWR-PHX market. For those in the know, NYC is the city code for all New York City airports versus EWR which is the airport code for Newark. In the NYC-PHX market, there is an M fare (which is indeed competitive with other carriers in the NYC market). But, we should be basing this off the EWR market, and not NYC. Defaulting to the city code versus the airport code is ultimately the issue. It’s not happening in all markets. But, as I look back at other examples, I can now see that this is the cause of other apparent “tens of dollar” offers.
I know that many of you have cited cases of receiving “tens of dollars” upgrade offers recently. Our challenge in researching these is that there is a pretty small window in which the level of detail necessary to assess the situation is accessible (specifically, the detailed research window ends about 24 hours post-departure). To dig into the details, we also need to know the specific flight, the original fare class purchased and the status of the customer. I’m happy to say that, in this case, were able to put all the pieces together.
Personally, I’d like to thank you for continuing to share your feedback with us, and more importantly, for your patience with us during this time of extreme transition. We’re committed to being upfront and sharing the insight behind any policy changes with you. We'll also always ackowledge our mistakes and fix things when they’re not working correctly. Your continued feedback is a key to our success. Please keep it coming.
Shannon