Originally Posted by
Hollandair
First of all, what I stated is not my opinion or anything. It is purely the statement of the KLagents at the Crown lounge at AMS.Secondly, you ask why they didnt put an end to it? Let me ask a question:
If all GUC upgrades have cleared and processed. And 1 hour prior departure there are 2 open D1 seats left. What is the harm selling them for some cash or miles to first come first serve, or the interested person with the highest status?
The harm is that people may start booking economy tickets, knowing they can consistently upgrade to business for a fraction of the retail price at the airport. And KLM was often selling the day of departure upgrades first come first served *before* processing waitlisted GUC instruments, thereby skipping over any sort of upgrade priority list. Delta doesn’t offer a departure day buy up option at any other airport for their own flights - it was only a KLM program at AMS.
I know that I had previously changed my booking patterns to account for the easy availability of day of departure upgrades at AMS, and I suspect I wasn’t the only one.