Originally Posted by
Goldorak
I am not happy about it. I was a « regular » buyer of those paid upgrades (when I say regular, I mean 2-3 long-haul and 2-3 medium haul flights/year) and I haven’t done it for quite a while now as all the proposals I had were just crazy. What’s the point proposing €350 for a CDG-LHR or €1600 for JFK-CDG (Y to J). This is a fare difference and not a paid upgrade. From the airline perspective, I can completely understand the concept of dynamic pricing for this, but there is no point reaching those prices because no one will ever pay that. If you accept to pay €1600 for a paid upgrade Y to J JFK-CDG, you would have booked J from the beginning.
I thought Goldorak was only traveling in La Premiere
.
From a casual reading of the other thread, it seems to me that they have been many offers well below 1,600. I suppose that they do dynamic pricing. When the J load is very high while Y has lot of empty seats (no need for opup), they basically price the upgrade as fare difference. A very few guys might pick it (see story below), but there are very few seats available anyway so that is equivalent for AF to selling a J ticket and priced accordingly. But when the J cabin is wide open their software offers a more reasonable price. And when J is wide open and Y overbooked, they might need to free opup anyway, so they are ready to offer a good good price.
Each pay-for-upgrade system (including bidding) is different at different airlines. AF system was peculiar because it offered dirt-cheap upgrades, irrespective of original fare bucket. But in general, top tier members of the airline tend to object to any paid upgrade system. At least when the airline strictly prioritize free opup on status. Take the example of CX. On regional flights (and these can be 5+ hours), CX uses widebodies with large fixed number of J seats. CX top tier (DM) score high on being upgraded ( say 50 to 70% on regional flights). Even on longhaul, the record is quite good. As OWE I was opup recently from J to F. That benefit would be vastly reduced when a paid-upgrade system (other than fare difference) is introduced
if it is available to all.
Of course, the best world for status pax would be cheap upgrade offers prioritized to them, even in situations where Y is not overbooked (unlikely to get free opup). But that is not going to be the future.
My reading is that AF has worked hard to provide J fares at a reasonable price, even outside holiday sale periods. Much lower than 5 years ago. The "bargain" where you could buy a heavily-discounted Y fare and upgrade to J for little money won't stay in the new AF pricing strategy. And I understand them.
Story: Assume you work or are invited for/by a bureaucratic university with strict no-J travel policy. They issue the ticket in Y. You are rich and famous and wish to travel J. It is near-impossible to get the university to issue/reissue the ticket in J paying on your own dime (trust me). There are just too many bureaucratic/accounting constraints and hoops. An upgrade offer of the fare dfference does the trick.
PS: With the moving curtain aspect of regional flights, the logic might be a bit different. But on longhaul planes the number of seats are fixed..