Originally Posted by
Mitanc
No, not the OP. Just someone with a similar experience.
It wasn't about the fare, I was in the Pier lounge waiting for my flight so I went up to the desk and asked if I could pay to upgrade my ticket from my existing class to a business class seat. Price was never mentioned, she looked at my ticket and said you are not allowed to even pay to upgrade this seat. Was rather cold and the 4 woman behind the desk proceeded to look like they had to attend to more important matters.
...
I just don't understand the business sense of not allowing someone to pay to upgrade their seat.
The people in the lounge suck at doing anything helpful. On at least two occasions they were unwilling to help me get on an earlier flight. I think it was because they just don't want to deal with it, which is unfortunate. But yea I've never had success doing anything complicated with them.
CX in general is not eager to turn away revenue. Look at how desperate they are to get new MPC members (Amex offers, giving away SFO lounge access), diluting the rest of us (and premium pax) in the process. I just think it's a somewhat poorly managed company and the whole team isn't on board with the mission.
There is a simple reason why they would "turn away revenue": to maintain the integrity of the premium classes. Sure, could every CX flight today earn more revenue by offering people discounted biz and F upgrades? Yes. They could easily fill up a half-full J class by doing some type of auction mechanism for Y pax. The problem, obviously is what that does to your long-term premium revenue generation - do loyal cash pax quit flying premium, or start buying cheaper fares? The answer is a most definite "yes", which causes a downward spiral in the premium class. So they "turn away revenue" today to maintain pricing tomorrow. US mainline carriers have decimated the value of their "First" class because any enterprising FF members can figure out a way to get it for free, or much cheaper than the list price.
Yet to the above point, seeing how CX lately doesn't mind eroding the value of their premium services, maybe they will start playing "let's make a deal" for cheaper premium seats soon.