Originally Posted by
georgewall42
+1.
The airlines use capacity controls already to allow space for paying flyers over those using award travel.
To be fair, the overwhelming majority of cases of involuntary downgrades of those purchasing confirmed (as opposed to waitlisted) award tickets tend to be issues due to last minute equipment changes or an unexpected overbooking problem. Downgraded customers are eligible for compensation in addition to getting their miles and/or dollars refunded.
In the case of an equipment swap, inop seat, etc - there is an existing published protocol for downgrading an oversold F situation, and it does not include bumping mileage tickets to coach.
What was alluded to was a premeditated practice of attempting to deliberately sell the same seat twice, and if customer #2 took the bait and offered a higher margin than customer #1, then customer #1 would be bumped to the back with a "too bad for you" attitude.
Consider the rules - if I flew FLL-EWR-LAX on a F mileage ticket for 25k miles and sat in F FLL EWR, but was "bumped" EWR LAX, I am technically not due a refund because I sat in F during at least one segment in a single direction - and if I pressed the matter, maybe I would get 12,500 miles - whoopie.