Originally Posted by
Justin026
Have never fully understood the “availability” of fares you can’t actually purchase anymore. It sounds fishy to the customer. Airlines would be more transparent having all/most of their remaining seats available for SDC with a reasonable reserve for paid walkups. Yes, there is an argument against that with people buying possibly-cheaper, later-in-the-day tickets and bringing them “forward” to game the system.
But a reasonable ability to SDC for free allows frequent flyers to actually… fly… frequently.
It does essentially let the airline decide who gets to SDC and prioritize higher-fare customers.
If a flight is, say, Y4B2M1, then only people who had bought Y, B, or M get to SDC. The rest have to go standby or wait until closer in to see if more buckets open up prior to the gate to confirm the change.