Originally Posted by
ijgordon
You forget that B fares are much higher than they were a year go, so obviously demand for that is necessarily down (Econ 101). I do agree that they're being stingier than in the past and we don't really know whether it's a business decision or a technical glitch, although CO Insider popped in here a while back suggesting a glitch, but hasn't been back to comment since. If it's a business decision, then I think people are rightly upset, because they do not seem to be selling these seats, either at F/A fares or as YBM-UPs. But we really just don't know.
RE: B fares, we have no transparency into whether demand is down or not. Given the last earnings call, I suspect the opposite is true. My travel patterns haven't changed as a result of the increase in fares. I buy lots of B fares, and most time sit in front (although not last week). As for the sell ups, it has been demonstrated many times, that the buy up to the Y,B,M is likely what's happening. Fares are not fixed and with the multitude of associated tariffs, there's really no way of ever truly knowing what is the appropriate buy up.
Originally Posted by
ijgordon
It's been discussed upthread - the main issue is lack of a choice of seat selection. It's sort of the whole idea behind the 5/3/1-day windows. Upgrade higher levels first and let them have first choice of remaining seats. When everyone is upgraded at once at T-24 you're stuck with what the computer assigns.
I personally think this is silly.