Originally Posted by
Symmetre
This is basically rubbish, because
- Someone flying on the cheapest possible fares will never accumulate enough points to even cover cab fare to the airport, much less a flight somewhere
- Ability to change seats is predicated by load, and is at the discretion of the gate crew. This is not guaranteed
- If you've bought the cheapest fare you will never get an upgrade. You can bid on one till you're blue in the face, but anyone who paid $1 more than you will get the upgrade first.
Many posts in this thread sound like they were written by Air Canada's marketing department.
While there is some truth in that, Basic fares are designed to appeal to the person that will choose one airline over another based on a fare difference of $1 and either doesn't care about service or prefers to operate in life with willful ignorance.
The differences between the lowest fare types between Westjet and AC are marginal with AC coming out slightly ahead on their STANDARD vs WJ BASIC fare, which is really about seat choice at check-in as you correctly point-out the points earning and upgrade bid potential is barely worth mentioning.