Originally Posted by
spin88
TOD is understood by every single person on this thread - yourself included - to mean "paid upgrades" from Y to F/J. So a long semantic post is not getting you far...
The issue is right there - you may have adopted it as such, but it's simply not accurate. Nor is it a "term of art"
that is commonly used here to mean same. IT's a ridiculous term that was maybe relevant for about a week when there were cheap "tens of dollars" upgrades erroneously being sold. It should have died long ago.
Every single person on this thread also knows by now that UA runs a reverse auction. price keeps dropping until it gets very cheap when R is substantial at less than T=24. Its cheapest an hour before the flight. Go to easy-chicken, most of the real TODs ("tens of dollars") come there.
I don't think you understand this well enough to make such a statement. We've seen a handful of examples where upgrades are offered in such a "reverse auction" way, and it seems to happen on a small number of flights. We see plenty
more posts where upgrades are offered days before the flight, and/or the price for a paid upgrade never changes.
Taking one
extreme and trying to convince us that it's what
always happens just makes you look uninformed.
I posted what UA said on the call. Its a QUOTE, you may not like that (truth kinda hurts, what sounds good to Wall Street, does not sound so good to 1Ks, Plats, gold, etc, with upgrade rates in the toilet) but its what UA told the markets.
I have zero issue with what UA said on the call. My (very specific) issue is with how you've totally misrepresented it and then try to claim some victory here.
I doubt anyone not flying mostly on Y/B/M, or flying from a leasure destination (HNL e.g.) is getting that upgrade rate at this point.
Ex-ORD, flying mainly to NYC and DCA, I'm close to 90% this year,
excluding one M-up at the start of the year. I know plenty more people with similar travel patterns and similar upgrade rates.[/QUOTE]