Originally Posted by
boolean64
TThe bigger deal was that if CO gave out 8 CR-1s, their revenue model would break. Too many plats that would ormally buy YBM fares to get the confirmed upgrade would now just buy the cheapest fare and upgrade. Four RTs per plat where you lost several hundred dollars of revenue would be a problem. But they couldn't take CR-1s away completely, so this is how they made the compromise.
The CR1s pull from separate capacity controlled fare buckets on UA. I expect that they would on CO as well. Would they have to use the same fare buckets as the YMB instant upgrade fares? No. UAs Y-UP and Q-UP fares used separate classes for the F component also.
-David