Originally Posted by
only1percent
Upgrade offers are a place where airlines can run all kinds of A/B tests and behavior modification probes they aren't allowed or don't feel comfortable doing in the primary sales channel.
The upgrade offers may be trying to shape behavior - the $1,304 is pushing you just to buy the first class ticket next time?
They are also basing offers on on their models for biases. EPs who buy economy tickets may well be poor upgrade offer targets, because they assume or want to take the bet they will be complimentary upgrades based on status, or might even feel offended to be offered paid upgrades too often, whereas Plats may appreciate the upgrade offers since they don't often get complimentary upgrades.
I agree they must be offering such absurd pricing for a reason. Maybe the Jedi mind tricks work on enough people to make it worth their effort. Even if I thought $858 was a reasonable price for an ORD-SFO F fare (I do not) I would still buy the coach fare just to see if the upgrade offer was significantly better. Maybe most won't want to take the time to call to upfare.
I have noticed that the pricing got pretty wonky in the time frame from when he went from Gold to Plat Pro. He didn't really travel at all in Q4 but man we racked up some $$$ on the Aviator card in that time frame. I booked 8 trips for him for Q1 in the last week and all have insane upgrade pricing versus when he was Gold. Maybe having higher status precludes him from better upgrade offers.