Originally Posted by Ausriver

Paid F pax doesn't care how others "paid" for their F seats.

If company paid for them, they wouldn't care.
If they paid with their own money at regular price, they wouldn't care.
If they paid with their own money at heavily discounted price, they wouldn't care.
If they paid with miles, they wouldn't care.
If they paid with J and OP-up, they wouldn't care.

Originally Posted by QRC3288

I'm not sure exactly what Paul is talking about, but I can speak from my own personal experience. Anecdotes can be deceptive I know, so take this with a grain of salt but it's just my own experience.

I had observed the debates here from afar, about how award programs and all these mileage are actually "payment" and whatnot and hadn't really thought about it. But once I tried it, I realized how screwy the whole system really is. The reason I feel comfortable saying the system is screwy is CX is losing a significant chunk of my revenue now. Revenue that would've gone to last minute J and F cash tickets (the most expensive types!), ironically these very tickets have become my least expensive tickets!

I cannot imagine the airline is expecting their absolute, rock-bottom cheapest "filler" F (and J) tickets to be cannibalizing their most expensive. Something is badly askew with revenue management when that's occurring. This isn't rocket science. The blame lies squarely CX.

Anyway, I will say that I really feel stupid because for over half my time in Asia I've paid my own way. This isn't some corporate's money...it's mine. And I feel like a moron. I don't think a company should put their cash paying customers in a position to feel like they were absolute idiots just for not knowing a trick to paying literally 1/10 to 1/15 the price. You may think I'm a little off the mark, but just sharing my personal feelings. I really like looking at the pictures at the One Mile Time blog and the others but I can't help but feel a tinge of pain because there is no free lunch....it was my wallet and others' who don't know any better who are basically subsidizing that frequent flier mileage party. It just doesn't feel right to me. And everyone I've mentioned this to, all of whom also pay for their tickets, are pretty jawstruck at the realization.

Of course, the airlines are the fools for setting this all up like it. And now they depend on those mileage tickets because there are too many premium seats, particularly F. I'll also add that J seats are just so superb these days that has heavily cannibalized the need for F. But that's another topic. Just sharing my sentiments. I've joined the mileage party now for the record. I still buy a lot of cash tickets, but when possible I do burn American, Alaska and credit card points....I just have a little bit of regret for not doing so earlier, and feeling like I was the idiot paying for someone else's ticket. At least in my case, I don't feel good about effectively subsidizing others' tickets just because I didn't know better. I understand price discrimination but I didn't think such a crazy difference would be possible.

Originally Posted by QRC3288

Ha yea, I hear you, but I just can't escape the fact that many people do indeed pay full rack rate and they're essentially getting a product that's being catered for a much lower margin F passenger. I don't think it makes sense to say a 15k passenger should get an F product cut down to what a 1k pax is paying. Nowhere else on the plane does such a massive disparity exist between pricing.

It's becoming somewhat common to differentiate ticket buckets in the back - this started in Y, has spread to J, and I don't see why it wouldn't work in F. With such vastly different price points I think it makes sense. It is just good business! Especially if CX doesn't take anything away, but instead enhances services for certain tickets only. I don't think AA award redeemers or Alaska people (or even AONE guys) will throw a fit if CX adds some "above and beyond" services that are only available to full F fare tickets. Or maybe they say all cash tickets. Or, in my pipe dream, cash tickets and MPC/Asia Miles. But whatever, the point is some differentiation and acknowledgement that the cash and value to CX is vastly different on the ticket profile in F class.

I should admit, ever since finding out about these cheap award tickets I've joined the party too and used them a few times myself. So I'm guilty also. If I wanted F, I used to either redeem Asia Miles from J or pay cash F last minute....now, 2/3 times I've realized you can find an Alaska ticket in F which you can effectively buy for $1400-$2000. The result for me has been I stopped buying last minute cash F tickets. That's why when I frequently hear the argument here that "this isn't hurting CX, it's all upside for CX to give Alaska / American / etc. this last minute inventory", it's a little laughable to me - at least in my experience, CX is losing a good chunk of change because once you find out you can buy something for 1/8 the price you were paying before....why not? I can't imagine I'm the only one. And since the service is identical between the two. It has always bugged me that you get stuck with a "bad" F seat when you pay cash 48 hours before departure. Overall I really just felt like I was getting gouged once I discovered you could effectively buy a cheapo seat in F and get the identical situation I got before. So now, if I land in 2D, at least I don't feel bad because I booked through Alaska. Whereas before I might've paid 8k USD for that one-way and still had the same seat and everything else. My point isn't to say a seat selection is worth 7k USD, but it's that when there is ZERO differentiation between the services of the two, you really do feel like you're a moron for having spent 7 years getting gamed. I'm not the only person who feels this way - although some of my peers and colleagues aren't quite as CX obsessed as me, all express similar sentiments to the vibe I'm saying here. And many of them buy full J and F tickets, even for personal holidays and whatnot, and we've all jumped in the camp of "spread the love" to other carriers lately. These are kinda directly linked. At some point CX reaps what it sows. If CX wants to offer a 30k round-trip F passenger the identical product its offering with extremely high frequency and availability to Alaska, AA, BA and whoever else, then it should expect to see those customers slowly migrate elsewhere except on absolutely essential nonstops. And likewise, the cabin gets filled with more and more lower margin F customers, and eventually the services / amenities are tailored down to the lower margin profile. This is just the inevitable evolution I think (and a reason why I think F will be further downsized). The only actual tangible difference between a full cash F ticket and Alaska is I don't accrue mileage on the Alaska tickets. Aka, virtually nothing. And I do love elite status (aka, an addiction!) but I fly enough that I can easily do 5-6 Alaska segments on CX per year and not have any risk of missing out on the 1,800 threshold .

Anyway, I really think something should be given to the more valuable pax. I think it will directly benefit the bottom line. I don't think the redeemers are going anywhere, meanwhile CX could perhaps snag some traffic from its regional competitors if it stepped up the game for full fare pax.

Originally Posted by wyskevin

I agree with you that CX release too many F reward seats to partners.
Maybe CX sould learn from LX that only their own elite members(HON& Senator, similar as MPC DM&GO) could redeem F.

Btw, not only AS and AA, CA also provides fairly low mileages to redeem CX F from HKG to Europe. There must be something wrong when AS and CA could provide better(lower) mileages requestment than Asia Mile does, on route US-Asia, or HKG-Europe.