Originally Posted by
ijgordon
Maybe you live in a bubble, but it absolutely matters what competitors do.
No, I don't live in a bubble. My point was that the fact that UA charges less doesn't make it a customer friendly proposition. Instead of raising a fuzz about it (which is probably not going to do anything, I know), some have rationalized it as "it's still better than the competitors."
It's an indirect cost. If there were no redeposit fees you could have a lot of people booking award trips that they "might" want to take, and that messes with the whole revenue management algorithm and could cost the airline real money. Plus it makes it more difficult for people who really want to take the trip to find the availability. The redeposit fee discourages this behavior. @:-)
I don't see how award redemption would "mess with revenue management algorithm." Airlines are supposed to have very strict restriction on award availability, thus once the award is booked, it's gone and no more award on that flight (I know it's probably oversimplification). Thus, even if someone cancels that award, it's a seat that has been allocated for award so there shouldn't be any interference with revenue seats.
As for the redemption fee being cost neutral (not factoring the "indirect cost"), I thought one can change the date of an award without any fee, so does it really cost more to cancel a reservation and rebook someone on a new flight than to just cancel & redeposit?
LAX