I was already flying less DL relatively speaking compared to past years, so I don't have as much recent SDC experience...
Originally Posted by
WillBarrett_68
this is incredibly bad, though SDC has already been pretty much eviscerated for F flyers
... are you saying this because of IT issues limiting what's shown, or agents not knowing the "last seat" rules, or cheap FCM reducing available seats...?
Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
This is a change I do not like, although if lots of people use SDC as a way to purchase cheap 6 am flights and then move to more expensive flights at desirable times, I can understand that DL wouldn't "like" this net movement of passengers which would also take later seats out of inventory for use in IROPs. I wonder whether there could be a better way to rewrite the rules to discourage this behavior while continuing to permit SDCs to later flights under reasonable conditions.
If they were unhappy about people buying cheap 6am flights and SDCing to more desirable middle-of-day flights, one change they could have made it harder but not completely eliminated it, by going to the policy some other airlines have or had, where you have to be within 24 of both your current flight and your SDC targeted flight in order to do the SDC. (In practice I think the app/website were soft-enforcing this limitation already anyway, of late)
Although the new restriction doesn't prevent people from buying cheap late night flights and SDCing to earlier mid-day flights, so, shrug.