Originally Posted by YOWkid
Eight months? Last time I checked the calendar, January 1 is less than two months away. But maybe I'm wrong and can't count.
The change I explicity refer to in that post (changes to upgrade awards) do not take effect until
July 1, 2009. That 4 days less than 8 months.
Originally Posted by YOWkid
And you're asked for a co-pay.
Which I mentioned later in that post, and further noted that the co-pay is reduced or eliminated for some (higher) fares.
Air Canada's equiavlent is the make you pay a higher fare up front, just for the opportunity to gamble that you'll get an upgrade, with no guarantees. In other words, with UA, if you get the upgrade you pay more than you might otherwise. With AC, you pay more than you might otherwise, then
hope your upgrade comes through.
Originally Posted by YOWkid
Yeah and how many people buy J fares so they can upgrade to F? Certainly not most pax.
I have
only ever upgraded from J/C to F on UA. And when I've done it, I've seen others doing it as well. (You know, when you're pacing nervously in the gate area waiting for your name to be called. I was once paged with 3 others, and we all got our "gate" upgrades into F. Given that you cannot upgrade from Y to F on a 3 class plane, I can reasonably assume that they paid J and upgraded to F.)
Regardless of how many passengers use this benefit, it's still a benefit, and probably particularly so to the most frequent flyers. Furthermore, it's not just J to F upgrades that are co-pay free, but also from some econo fares to the next class of service.
Originally Posted by YOWkid
Yeah and you don't play the UA lottery to get an upgrade on a T fare to upgrade to C? Right because UA is going to upgrade a T fare before they upgrade a B fare.
I'm not certain what you're getting at, but if there's upgrade space available when you request the points (and maybe cash) upgrade, you get it on the spot, regardless of the fare you're paying. In the case where you're waitlisted for an upgrade, why wouldn't they upgrade a T before a B, particularly if the airline could squeeze more dollars and more points out of someone who's paid a lower fare, instead of fewer points and maybe no dollars out of someone who has already paid the higher fare?
Originally Posted by YOWkid
Ok, so AC doesn't offer points upgrades. But for elites they have upgrades certs which if they did offer point upgrades, you would all be complaining that they are letting non-elites have access to seats that you believe is rightfully yours.
"Elites" (or the equivalent) also get upgrade certificates on UA.
And I assure you I would most certainly
not be complaining if AC started offering points upgrades. I'd probably be first in line to buy them.
Originally Posted by YOWkid
Go defend UA. I personally don't care because I'm not on anyone's side here. But I will suggest you go look on the UA board and see how many unhappy people there are. I haven't seen many good words (if any) about the program changes.
This thread is not about defending UA, or which program is better (well, at least it wasn't supposed to be.) It was about the fact that AC regularly announces cutbacks either post facto, or only when they've been forced by public pressure (primarily FT) to announce changes earlier. In fact they only started pre-announcing the upcoming year's program after a big flap on FT, and even then only originally announced the changes on FT, and not to the general public.
Even now, an AC employee seems to have implied that they already know what the program is going to be, and are yet still not announcing the details.
Why would that be?