Originally Posted by
kop84
I understand your point about basic customer service. BUT I would say those buying Basic Economy, are quite literally DL's least valuable customers. People that price sensitive don't typically have much brand loyalty. And if I was someone who did pay the extra for a regular coach ticket, and see an exception being made because someone woke up late when they knew they had a non-changeable ticket, they I'd be asking myself why I paid the extra $20 or so, especially if I don't have status and either don't have a seat assignment or have a middle seat. I'm not a monster, if someone had nearly any kind of event beyond their control, It wouldn't bother me at all to see an exception made.
Interesting. I am considering changing all my travel to Delta (mostly for route/schedule reasons). So far I've bought 4 BE tickets this month and saved $25 per one-way. I'm not very price sensitive, I just didn't see any value in paying $25 more.
So why would I buy BE? Well, I have no status (yet) so I'm not eligible for any kind of upgrade, I don't check a bag, and although I sometimes change my plans, when that happens I usually end up throwing away the original ticket anyway because most of my tickets are below the value of the change fee. The flights where I bought BE are all on E170/E175 so no chance of a middle seat (there's really not a bad seat on those planes).
I came to this thread because I was surprised that DL reportedly does not apply the flat tire rule to BE (as AA does, which is confirmed in the AA forum). That may influence my decision on whether to keep buying BE (although so far I'm $100 ahead)
(By the way, the
majority of customers on my last flight were in BE. Maybe we're Delta's least valuable customers but they're making up for it in volume.)