Originally Posted by
RandomBaritone
But again, given that these seats were wholly unavailable to non-LX-elites before this change, I'm scratching my head as to how this is can be viewed negatively. Often they used to go out empty -- which as I point out above is how I lucked into one.
Hmm. I flew in paid J on LX in fall 2014 and saw some non-blocked "throne seats" on ZRH-BOS which were available for selection. I know that a lot of those seats were reserved for elites only (and now elites or buy-ups only).
Other times that airlines have charged for specific J seats:
* BA notably charges for upper-deck 747 seat assignments.
* When UA operates a three-class 777 which is sold as 2 classes of service, they sometimes allocate the GlobalFirst seats to Global Services passengers but do not otherwise make them available for assignment. If you are a J pax and ask very, very, very insistently, UA may offer to seat you in the F cabin with F seats and J service for about $2900 (I once asked very insistently but didn't end up taking the offer).
* When LH was removing their best-in-the-sky "seat and a bed" 744 F configuration, they sometimes operated a 744 with J service but let you pay €499 to sit upstairs.