Originally Posted by
star_world
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.
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 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.
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]
I quoted what UA (I think it was Compton) said on the 1Q in my post. I even BOLDED it. see:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/20678417-post349.html What the 40% figure referred to was VERY VERY clear. If you did not understand, to quote Steve Martin "I am so SORRY"
That you may not like the terminology I used - "TOD" - to describe what I quoted and BOLDED UA said "paid premium upgrades" is not causing me any pain.
And if you want to dispute that UA does not use a reverse auction, post some data, don't just assert it. There have been hundreds of folks who have posted the patterns they see, not a few. And arguing that there are posts "where upgrades are offered days before the flight" is simply a diversion. For the price to drop (which is what happens in a reverse auction) higher prices have to be offered earlier.
The pattern I have seen when I have track it, is price goes like this: at purchase [what is actually usually a v-up/m-up into P]
> e-mail offer [not always send]
> check-in at t-24
> right before departure at machine. I have personally never seen the offered price go up. Nor can I recall very many examples (if any) that people have posted that the price has gone up over time. There are certainly situations where R=1 or R=2 and the price does NOT fall, it stays the same, but you would expect that to be the case.
If you really want to contribute, then do an analysis of the experience of those who have gotten multiple offers, post it.
UA has repeatedly said that it is using dynamic pricing, and a reverse auction like UA is using is a form of that.
I don't think UA set out to do a reverse auction, they want the price to go up as you got closer to departure, and they have set up reminders to try to goad folks into buying a "paid premium upgrade" rather than waiting for the GPU/CPU to clear. But that would require lots of folks to be willing to pay hundreds or thousands more for UA F/C product that has gone for lowest common denominator.
There is also very little evidence (in the form of people admitting they took them) of people paying for the very high offers made at time of booking, instead reports are of people buying the cheap up-sells at time of sale, or the later per-departure offers that are heavily discounted. The problem for UA (and perhaps why you are rushing in to try to respond like you are) is that after a while folks figure it out, and if they are looking for a "paid premium upgrade" what they really want is a "TOD"
and they wait for the lower offer. FT has informed people about UA's pricing strategy.
And assertions that your personal upgrade rate is great, or for that matter any assertion you make, is not going to change my view of what is happening, nor I expect others.
