It's not random, it's what happens when you build systems outside your core infrastructure.

SHARES is so bad, CO's architecture model is to build many functions as ancillary systems to SHARES.

So they have a revenue upgrade model which sells cheap upgrades (e.g., the $59 IAH-YYC upgrade we saw upthread). It assumes, however, that all Elites have been upgraded already. In fact, for all we know, pricing may even be dynamic based on inventory, so it sees a wide open F cabin with R wide open, it may choose a lower price.

Problem is, EUA is yet another ancillary system, so if EUA isn't working right (as we've heard here for the past several weeks), then the assumptions used by this other ancill

It's just bad architecture. It works fine when everything works properly. The problem is CO has historically had trouble keeping on top of the many pieces that have to run in conjunction with one another to make things work. They'll fix this bug, it'll be some other bug in a few months, and heck we may even see this return again (as we had before -- the TOD thing had quieted down for a while, and now it's back again due to the EUA issues).