I think the idea around diluting revenue is they fear people buying a cheaper seat that has a lower fare class available ahead of time with the expectation that they can SDC into the flight they actually want. Obviously the airlines have the hard data on this. I’ve always found this to be a weak argument.

On US Airlines, I myself have sometimes used the strategy before. But it rarely pushed me to buy the more expensive connection. I will buy in most cases the cheaper routing and if have an opportunity to make it work for me via SDC then great, otherwise, I stick to my original purchased flight. I think this is what the vast majority people would do, but that’s mearly an opinion.

in my case today, I would’ve definitely booked the earlier connection, but it was five minutes shy of being a legal connection.

In the case of Air France, who is primarily a long haul carrier with lots of inbound transatlantic traffic and only three or four flights a day to many cities, being able to SDC as an elite when you arrive earlier would be a great official perk. I’m sure this only worked out for me today because the new flight had the exact fare bucket inventory I was already booked on and the transfer desk agent had the technical knowledge to do it quickly.