Originally Posted by
Gargoyle
Those changes are costly. When you cancel or change an award ticket, the flights you release do NOT go back into award inventory. They go into general inventory, which the computer then divvies up and allocates to whichever fare bucket it chooses.
OK, playing Devil's Advocate: If you cancel and/or relinquish an award seat on a given flight and it then goes back into general inventory and gets sold as a
revenue seat, how is that "costly" to the carrier?
The carrier converted a seat that was "free" into a revenue seat. And if you replaced it with another award seat, by definition that was a seat not expected to sell in the first place (otherwise, it would never have been allocated to award inventory).
Has anyone from the army of beancounters run the numbers on how much revenue was gained by converting, via voluntary changes, award seats into revenue seats? I.E., taking a seat that you had given up for award usage 11 months prior, which now you are able to convert to a revenue seat?
Now, it is "costly" when someone is holding an award seat and simply doesn't show up. That is a seat where the revenue is gone forever.
So, to me, changes and no-shows are two entirely different subjects, yet it sounds like management lumps them together into this horrible "costly" disaster that must be punished with fees.
I say, allow changes freely (you might even make money off of it) up until two weeks before the flight, after which a fee to change dates kicks in (but not to change to a different flight on the same date). I then say levy a stiff penalty to redeposit miles, or eliminate redeposits altogether, when the holder of the seat fails to cancel in advance and then doesn't show up for the flight.
One of the reasons that so many people don't show up and don't cancel in advance might just be because whether you change or cancel, and regardless of when you change or cancel, the penalty is the same. What incentive is there to cancel in advance (when it is most advantageous to the carrier)? You can cancel now, cancel later, or just redeposit miles after the no-show, and it won't matter to your pocketbook -- yet the difference to the carrier between you canceling now versus later (or not at all) is significant. I would hope that the legion of beancounters would realize this and reward the behavior that best protects the carrier.