Originally Posted by
DiverDave
I appreciate your clarification, but this argument seems specious to me. It's okay for a smaller group of DMs to deplete the inventory of low awards, but it wasn't okay for a somewhat larger group of PMs to do the same?
You're missing what they've already admitted to. It's the fees that DL is interested in generating. Change, reissue, cancellation. $200 million in fees for the combined carrier, an increase of 40 or 50%, if I recall right.
When you can only get subpar awards many months in advance, you often have to take what's there, before it disappears. When a better leg comes up later, they then want $100 or $50 to change it. All the Plats I know refunded tickets when they knew they wouldn't use them, or changed them when a new itin just came up. Without the fight that the NW folk put up in February and March, there would be no $50 changes for Plats, or 2 free ones, either.
Even today, I canceled an award flight the day before Thanksgiving, since I wasn't going to need it.