Sure, and I'll pay a small premium for the convenience, but not 3x the price. Of course that was just a single data point. As I also pointed out, on my trip to CUN, the direct flight on AA was the cheapest option (though I did pick the only 2 days with cheap tickets -- as always, being flexible saves a lot of money). One nice bonus is that the cheapest days are usually the cheapest because of low loads, and therefore upgrades are easy! My return from CUN actually had an empty seat in F so I guess there were not many elites on that flight and they were all up front.