Originally Posted by
GrayAnderson
(3) I doubt it would be WN to introduce it, but what about an airline offering a "guaranteed day only" ticket or something similar? You're guaranteed a seat on a flight on a given day (or within a given time range on a given day) when you book, but you're not told which flight you're assigned to until a certain time before (say, 72 hours out) and you're
#1 for reaccomodation. Basically an advance-purchase variant on a standby ticket. In that scenario, you'd still have the $59 cheapo fare, but you wouldn't know if you were on the 0600 or 0900 flight.
One of the benefits of being Airtran Elite was that they guaranteed you a seat on any flight you wanted to fly, they would bump another passenger if necessary. I never had to use it, there was always a seat on the few last minute reservations I had to make. But it was a nice insurance policy and cost the airline very little.