Originally Posted by
Xrayman
However, the saver fares as a category to attempt to attract new fare sensitive customers did NOT lower the price of the lowest cost ticket a single penny. I would have totally understood if AS actually lowered the lowest fare ticket by lets say $15 dollars and thus have an arbitrage of $15, but they didn’t. It didn’t help attract any additional cost sensitive flyers with no need or desire form flexibility. This was disappointing.
The added $60 round trip is a direct 20-30% upcharge for my typical standard round trip. I hope AS is able to attract new passengers with this strictly marketing rebranding of a product without a change in the cost to the passenger
EXACTLY! Nothing wrong with AS needing to offer a Y- product in order to lower fares to compete with those that have it - the problem is that they're just making "old Y" the new Y- price, which won't be making them more attractive to any price-sensitive customers than before. Having Y- priced at old-15 and Y at old+15 would be reflective of such a model. What they're doing now is just taking a crap on elite pax by making Y- price the same as before (e.g. no change in competition for low-fare people), while fares with any elite benefits are now just old+30. No difference for the cheap travelers, lots of hurt for frequent fliers.
Originally Posted by
Xrayman
differentiation from DL (mileage based plan for elite status, abiliy to cancel or change my plans without a charge etc) then it will be an easy decision to go to status match and have access to the larger network of DL from Seattle. DL has the same route that I need and I will be following their consistency on this route for this year just in case I need a to reassess my carrier of choice.
I'd hate to even consider this. Have always felt that AS was a few cuts above the rest - here's to hoping that they don't continue much more down the devaluation path.