I'm not sure I understand the comment about having an option for "lowest upgradable fare" being financially disadvantageous to the airline. If anything, the current situation with "promotional" fares not being upgradable using miles is causing people to book higher fares in hopes of an upgrade. For those people for whom this is important, the lack of availability of this information on the web site means that they will have to call reservations and speak with an agent, even if they end up booking online. This certainly must cost CO more money than if the booking could be handled completely online.

As a beta participant for the new website, I have just noticed a couple of great improvements in this area when compared to the existing web site. Although not as straightforward as what has been reported on the DL web site, the new site will give us much more information than the old one. Specifically,

1. The fare class is visible on the "Review itinerary" screen, which is the equivalent of the "Flight details" screen on the old web site. On this page, instead of just seeing "Economy/Coach Class", the new site shows "Economy (V)", giving you some idea as to what fare the price is based on.

2. Better yet, if you click on "rules and restrictions" on this page, the page returned by the beta web site will tell you if the fare is not upgradable by looking in the "Other Discounts" section. On the old web site, "OTHER DISC" most often just says "see text rule", but mortals cannot view the actual text rule. The new web site seems to give you a much more "raw" view of the fare rules. In particular, the "Other Discounts" section will have the full details. As an example, here are the results of viewing the rules for fare basis VLX0401 for travel from IAH to NRT:

Current web site:
OTHER DISC - SEE TEXT RULE

Beta web site:
OD.OTHER DISCOUNTS
NOTE -
RULE 1151 - SENIOR CITIZENS DISCOUNTS MAY NOT BE
APPLIED TO TRAVEL UNDER THIS RULE.
----
ONEPASS UPGRADES/COMPANION TICKETS OR OTHER
MARKETING PROGRAMS MAY NOT BE APPLIED TO TRAVEL
UNDER THIS RULE. ONEPASS MILEAGE ACCRUAL PERMITTED

Certainly, the beta web site provides more information. It is in a less digestable format than the old site, but I think that's okay, since very few people are likely to wander into the detailed "rules and restrictions" section anyway. For those people that do, I think having as much information as possible is a definite benefit.