Originally Posted by
gpez
Anyone else think this is a really customer-unfriendly policy? For your everyday folks who don't know about these fancy availablity tools how are they supposed to be able to use SDC? Just roll the dice? Sounds pretty scary to me (and I do a fair bit of flying)!
Seatcounter.com is FREE. Calling the airline is also available to anybody. I don't pay for any of the "fancy availability tools" that you mention. It is scary to you because you're obvoiusly not open to change or trying something new. Yes, NW HAD FlyNow. But that was limited as well. If you want to go into a FlyNow vs SDC debate, there are numerous threads discussing the advantages and disadvantages of both.
If you do NOT want to use SDC, you're not obligated to. You can "roll the dice" or simply fly your original flight. If you want to take a later flight and don't want to SDC, you could pay the change fee and difference in fare.
SDC provides you with an option. That is all. The airline, shocking to many people, is still in the business to make money for shareholders. They could not provide any option and force you to pay change fees or charge you higher fares for flexible tickets.