Originally Posted by
GetSetJetSet
I don't know how all of this works exactly, but it seems that non-revs should always be put in Y and if they need to fill seats further forward they should "reward" AA elites for their loyalty by bumping them up rather than giving the seats away to employees traveling for free, no?
Part of the problem is that "reward" your loyal fliers, fliers who are generally familiar with your product, and risk devaluing your product. Elites may be less likely to purchase premium products if they know there's a good chance they can get them for free. You really aren't advertising to new customers with the upgrade so you are mostly losing the revenue on it. There are other reasons and I'm sure there are pros to doing the upgrade. I think the most common reason given is simply to protect the revenue of the premium product.
Certainly even an elite who may not have flown int'l J or F might like it so much that they will pay in the future but the odds are that many elites are bought with business money and if the business allowed J or F purchases then the flier would be in J or F anyway. So if they're not and they aren't buying the ticket, there's pretty much zero chance that rewarding them will have any type of substantial ROI for the airline.