Originally Posted by
TomA
And people spending more are not necessarily more valuable anyway. As I have pointed out before, if you book the last ticket in V class the next guy is being forced to buy Q class BECAUSE you bought the last V class ticket. Filling the seats is more important than the total spending by an individual.
The only people who are REALLY worth more are those that are buying higher fare class tickets even though lower fare classes are still available.
But even in that scenario, if a person buys Q, the next person will simply buy V.
It seems to me that, as long as Economy is (nearly) full, UA simply gets the revenue it wants, regardless of how much each individual customer spends. A revenue-based model for economy travelers doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense this way. UA would simply be giving a freebie to the people who book late. It might create an incentive for people to try to book as late as possible, or it might create an incentive for people to book into a higher fare class, but in the end, the total revenue will be largely the same. For every person who pays more, another person pays less.
Carrying this a step forward, if FT'ers game the system by buying into a higher fare class, the regular economy travelers would end up with the cheaper tickets, and they would not have a chance at achieving status. They might as well then travel with an airline that does offer them a reasonable opportunity for status.
Carrying this another step forward, UA would benefit from a revenue based program only if it could fill all seats on all planes with people who purposely buy into a higher fare class. But that's just not going to happen. There just aren't enough people who are able and willing to do that.