Originally Posted by
TrojanTraveler
Taking away the transcon upgrades really doesn't make much sense to me. If they fill it with purchased biz, then there's no upgrade anyways (which was not uncommon). And if they want to restrict transcon upgrades to DMs (which for all intents and purposes they have done), why bother with having us need to waste a new Global Upgrade? Why not just say DMs get upgraded if space is available? It's not like they were currently taking away space from paying pax, given that these were all gate upgrades.
DL has spent a lot of time and resources building up their presence in NY and to becoming the transcon carrier of choice. I think they shot themselves in the foot (or somewhere else) with this one.
Yeah, I dont' understand this either. They really must think they're going to get people trading up from $300-400 coach fares to $2500-3500 business class fares by all but eliminating upgrades on this route. I think that's
very unlikely because the fare differential is just too great for anyone who's paying with their own money (or a small business), and most business travelers fly where their corporate travel policy allows. You can be sure that if my policy allowed J on a transcon, I would NOT be buying Y and hoping for the upgrade. Even a few years ago when CO was offering confirmed-at-booking upgrades to elites on YB(M) fares, I'd still buy the first class because it was only $100-200 more and provided better protection in IRROPs, higher priority if I wanted to stand by for an earlier flight, and additional RDMs.
So DL is basically just pi55ing a bunch of frequent fliers off and it's not going to get them much more revenue. But it'll sure make the employees happy!
When AA and US got their DOJ goahead, I decided that I wasn't going to give further consideration to going to AA as US is pretty bad and their management is running the new show. DL has just lowered the bar again in considering them.
I think many of us AA fliers are trying to be optimistic, particularly that Parker will run the airline more like AA than US. US never had any opportunity to be run as a "world-class" airline that garners a big revenue premium, so he had to go the low cost route. But only time will tell.
Originally Posted by
Fred 3
Yes, it is a loss of losing the Transcon upgrade possibility, and yes it may not seem fair that you have to use your global GPU's, but honestly, what is the difference in the JFK-LHR flight and the JFK-LAX flight in time?
Well, the difference on JFK-LHR and JFK-LAX is not that great, maybe a half hour. But the difference on LHR-JFK vs. LAX-JFK is huge, LHR is almost twice as long. LHR is 40% further by mileage.
No program is perfect. Not everyone will be pleased. But the question everyone should ask is for the majority of people, is this new program better off than the old program. I think it is.
Yikes, it sounds like the only improvement is the lack of fare restrictions on the new GUs, exclusive to DMs. Admittedly, that's big. And I guess Western US - HI upgrades. But every other change seems negative to me.