I agree. I liked what Scott said about BF waitlists eventually clearing, too. The ability to waitlist on a mileage award is a very valuable plus, IMO.

I know that most people want the assurance at the time they redeem awards that they will be in BF, but I think that CO's waitlisting process is a great way for them to allow us to redeem BF upgrade awards without sacrificing revenue.

But based upon what I experienced flying LAX-EWR-FCO a few weeks ago, I think that CO needs to re-look at how they manage the inventory to reflect the new economic reality. Both 764 BF cabins went out with 9 or 10 empty seats (and the EWR-FCO flight had at least 2 non-revs in BF), and my upgrades only cleared 3-4 weeks in advance, despite wide open BF cabins up until that point.

I know of at least 2 people who wanted to take my exact same flights who wanted to upgrade with miles, but since they could not confirm the upgrades at the time of booking, they ended up redeeming miles for free J tickets on VS and Alitalia, at great cost to CO, I'm sure.

Perhaps CO could reserve some seats on each BF flight for elites to use for mileage redemption, as we are the ones who are the most likely to find alternate solutions which will cost CO more in the long run in our efforts to avoid Y on longhauls at all costs.