Originally Posted by
entropy
Its pretty awful, but fully disclosed and warned against. Perhaps it will prevent Kettles from getting ToD upgrade offers!
Heh, now I'm curious. If you book an N fare do you get the post-purchase F upgrade offer? Do you get PQD? N fares are 24-hours cancellable, right?
Originally Posted by
JBord
Basic Economy is merely the vehicle for an across-the-board fare increase. It affected everyone, including elites. If you've flown one of those routes, you've likely paid $20 more than you would have before BE was introduced.
Any time there is a devaluation to a group of customers, it impacts all of us. Devaluation is typically a process of small steps anyway. Take something away from non-elites, a year later from Silvers, a year later from Gold and Plat, etc.
I'm really curious how this is going to go over in the SFO/LAX market. It's a pretty unique market where there is a lot of O&D traffic compared to other short-ish hops, and a lot of competition has kept fares low. I've watched the "base sale price" of a ticket tick up from $39 to $49 to $59 over the years (and still remember when it was $9 on WN).
The $15 fare increase effected by BE is actually very large for the market, and so I am curious to see whether it ends up being sustainable even against WN.