Originally Posted by
Duke787
The same people complaining about lack of SDC are the ones who shout over and over WFBF.
If you want that specific flight, buy that specific flight, otherwise you take your chances.
SDC is a benefit pending space availability, not a guaranteed right.
"How dare DL not let me change to a different flight with better timing / better F seats / etc., for free, after I specifically chose a different flight when booking -- and then to top it all off DL proceeded to sell seats on the other flight to paying customers??? Ridiculous!"
SDC can be a much different benefit than first class. I may or may not want to pay for first, but I'd always rather have it, and there's no benefit in flexibility as to whether or not I sit in first class. In other words, me not buying it from the beginning is always because I'm cheap.
For SDC, the value for me is not booking a cheap flight and hoping to change to the one I really wanted to begin with. It's the flexibility to wake up, see how work goes that day or who I want to have lunch with where, and then change to a flight that makes sense.
I love that US airlines offer this benefit, and I think it actually makes a lot of market sense—these are changes that are absolutely not worth paying the change fee and fare difference for and involve little to no cost for the airline.