First off, "tens of dollars" is not my trademark, that was coined by another FTer.

That said, I'm not playing CO's technicality and legalese game with this. There are multiple issues here. The whole issue of Y/B/M-Ups is questionable to begin with. After all, who would buy a Full F fare when you could score an M-Up? There is quite possibly significant revenue erosion going on there.

Second is the aggressive marketing at checkin resulting in an overall lack of transparency in the whole process. CO is hawking these things at checkin for whatever they can get, and as a result their repeat customers are paying the price. In this case, they've left one of their $30K customers behind in exchange for what might have been (here you go) tens of dollars from someone else). It could have been more, it could have been less, who knows. The point is they're no longer valuing the customer relationship, and shifting their focus to a transactional relationship. I doubt that's the right business move.

Now granted, CO is well within their rights to do that, but shouldn't they also mention that this is how the game works? CO has an entire page dedicated to complimentary upgrades, and nowhere on the page does it say that CO will attempt to sell those upgrades before processing them.

There's even a tips section on how to help ensure an upgrade. And nowhere there does it say that CO can elect release upgrade seats for Y/B/M-Ups but withhold them from Elite upgrades, so consider paying a fee-waived fare differential online or at checkin to get a better chance at your upgrade.

We all know what they're doing. Why not come out and say as much?