Originally Posted by SEA_Tigger
Not necessarily. First off, can the person afford the ticket? If they can't, it doesn't matter what they charge for it.
Second, they might be able to buy a First or Business Class ticket. Even if the airline shows no availability, don't think for a moment they won't sell the ticket (fares can be anywhere from four to five figures) and then cancel an upgrade, offering the person they cancelled anywhere from nothing (they just return the upgrade cert) to some minor form of compensation (an additional upgrade cert of a voucher for future travel).
And finally, if they're willing to pay the maximum rate, the airline will sell them the ticket, I am sure, even if they have to involuntarily deny someone boarding, as the compensation will be less then the revenue derived from the ticket, I am sure.
Several months ago, I was supposed to fly from AEX (Alexandria, Louisiana) to SFO on CO, via IAH.
A colleague and I were on paid first class tickets (fully refundable).
Due to weather in AEX, the flight from AEX to IAH was delayed badly. It was clear that we'd never make the connection in IAH. So, we wanted to get on a later IAH-SFO flight.
I spoke with the ticket agent in AEX, and he said that the next five or so flights from IAH to SFO were totally full, meaning that we'd be stuck in IAH for about 24 hours. I called Reservations and Customer Relations. Both said the same thing. Even if we were willing to downgrade, we couldn't get on a flight.
Since we were still in the terminal at AEX, I made it clear that we were prepared to refund our tickets and fly another airline. They still said that they couldn't put us on a flight.
We refunded our tickets and flew DL instead. The amount of revenue CO lost was considerably more than the cost of denying boarding to two other passengers.
So, at least on CO, a very expensive ticket doesn't necessarily guarantee you a seat.
