Originally Posted by
alexbc
Don't be fooled, gotto read between the lines, if someone PAID for those seats and booked it, regardless of your status you will NOT get those seats!!! This is a total departure from the past that those front rows could not be booked by non-status folks at the time of booking.
What happens now is:
- Joe, family and kids and inlaws booking AC for the first time 3mos in advance
- The book cheapest fare
- AC offers, do you like to pick from front row seats for additional cost?
- Joe pays for those and books the whole front row for the whole family and kids on their first ever flight
- SE books after them 2 weeks prior to flight, and has no option on the front row as *paid* customer paid and booked the seats!
This basically makes the front rows totally crowded, and more revenue for AC, and for any last minute business traveler (most of my flights), it'd be almost impossible to get those front rows.
I think the only effective way, long term, for AC to make this work is to have it free for Elites (on a tiered booking window) and everyone else to pay. UA kept E+ after the merger because certain marketing people in the company fought for it on qualitative grounds than on the bean counter's spreadsheets.
Today they still have it because it is profitable: Elites get access to unsold seats in E+ free, and UA gets incremental revenue (from enthusiastic VBITs) to offset the E+ cost and everybody is more/less happy.
AC is forgetting that in order to enjoy the majority of the loyalty benefits, one has to spend money on AC/*A partners - thus it already drives increased revenue.
What I detest even more is how AC Altitude is using words to position this as an positive net benefit for Altitude members (who are more educated on flying than the general public), rather than having a honest conversation with their top tier customers. Social media is about occupying a seat at the table (with regular participation), not to broadcast top down messaging with weasel words.