Originally Posted by
mitchmu
I'm arguing that it wasn't a scam with UA as per the numbers I shared in prior post. Whether or not it's a scam depends on the ratio of how much you have to waste in order to use 6 GPUs. Just my opinion. Sounds like we have different views on that. FYI - if they dropped the W fare requirement, I certainly wouldn't complain. But, to the extent that fare class is a tie breaker amongst PAX with same status, there would still be an incentive to insert yourself into the lottery anyway. Trying to compete with other 1K's and GS's for a limited number of seats on the lowest possible fare class has got to result in lower success rate than paying a higher fare. I've always argued that this is why COdbaUA should stop its practice of selling seats out from underneath 1K's on the wait-list, because this new TOD practice takes away all incentive for us to pay higher fares, voluntarily or involuntarily. It's a race to the bottom and they are pushing us there.
For now, I'd be grateful if they would fix anything. Just one thing. Please.
Just curious, but has anybody ever thought that maybe the reason for lower success rates on international upgrades is the fact that the introduction of lie-flats in business has greatly reduced the ratio of premium seats available to upgrade into? I know for the sUA fleet on some aircraft types the number of premium cabin seats dropped drastically with the IPTE renovations. That would seem to be more a matter of logistics - the same (or more) amount of people wanting to upgrade into far less available seats. And the airline is in a tight spot here - before we had the lie-flats we heard it from every direction that we were falling behind the times and other airlines in regards to the hard product. You can't exactly add all those lie-flats and keep the number of premium cabin seats the same, they take up WAY more room.