Originally Posted by
jimbo99
It seemed to change around 5 years ago for me. Non-availability was the order of the day. Eg on London, perhaps in 10 days there would be 1 or 2 flights available. The rest you'd be waitlisted. On TPE-HKG, often the only flights available would be at the end of the day. TPE-SGN is also very patchy. These are the only routes I know well.
But that's not to say you won't get the seats you want. It seems EVA just resent giving away something "free" if someone might pay for them. Often waitlisted seats will indeed clear, perhaps a few days before the flight. That's a pain if you are trying to plan something.
That's what my relatives told me too, EVA used to be so first class organization, but now they haven fallen into the new Economy of "Don't be the best, just be better than your competitor", and unfortunately, the competitor for EVA is CI, and it really doesn't take much to be better than CI....
Also, in tough economy times, it is true airlines are starting to realize this "frequent flier miles" thing can cost them much money (accounting wise.) Cause to them, reward tickets are a lost in revenue.