Originally Posted by
Ben Lipsey
I think this is a salient point for many on here. I'm going to be blunt: we are not a charity. From what I'm hearing, it would appear a majority pays for Y and expects to sit in J. It's not a secret that we would prefer our customers sitting in the J cabin to have paid for it. You say that you would never choose to pay for AC over, say, CX - that is your right as a consumer, but it is one that pushes us to strive to be better and have a product that our customers feel is worth paying for. We are investing heavily in new hardware (see 787 spec), and internally we are trying to create a focus on consistent high-level service delivery (for all the posts about it on here, we are not blind to it). You will see more product enhancements (and I'm not using that word facetiously) in the near future.
Absolutely wrong. I have a both high cost J tickets every year as well as Y, where I Eup where possible, and I value that highly. I burn eUps on NA routes that I honestly don't care about (even 5 hour flight for me is trivial if I have a good seat). On DL or AA, I have had a very high success rate of UDU. So my plan is to status match on a US airline (I don't do much inter Canada and I have MM for that anyway). For international, I will buy lowest cost in the Alliance of my choice (almost always cheaper than AC) and put up with a connection. I will review the options carefully, but Dl is my likely choice. DOn't get me wrong, I have enjoyed AC, and I'm not bitter, but as you say, I will reevaluate. My estimate on $ loss to AC is >$120K per year.