Originally Posted by
warakorn
Well, have a look at LH, SQ, CX, NH and co:
By not releasing cheap award space, the airline is enticing customers to rather buy a J-cash fare. If more and more people knew that there are not going to be cheap upgrades, they might be willing to buy the ticket completely with cash.
Anyone with any upgrade (miles/GPU/cash) would have cleared that upgrade list. Obviously, not enough people were willing to pay what UA sold the business seats for on this flight.
This seems like pretty bad revenue management from UA, other airlines run aggressive business class sales (VS/BA), allow name your price upgrades or at least open saver award space, but UA just basically let an easy $50k per flight revenue walk out the door. I’m seeing similar loads up front on the other new or seasonal flights out of SFO, like Zurich. Is this just the new mode of operation? Is there some benefit we’re not getting here?