For once, I agree with NJDavid. Although the 72-hour rule stinks for the honest passenger, I understand why it had to be done.

Another poster mentioned that not a lot of people could afford to float an $8000 ticket while waiting for a refund. I beg to differ. First of all, there are probably a great many people that could float $8000 for a month or two. Second, it doesn't even require a ticket purchase, as full-fare reservations in J can be reserved over the phone up to 11 months in advance and be left unticketed, with the space confirmed and even a seat assignment, until 60 minutes prior to departure for international flights. Actually, the same is true for Y fares in coach. It would be very difficult to track this back to the elite users that were abusing the system. Just because a particular elite was a frequent recipient of an upgrade on flights with last-minute cancellations or no-shows wouldn't be proof that they were responsible for the phantom bookings. And, they can't really put restrictions on ticketing/cancellations/refunds on full Y or J fares, as the complete freedom they offer is a big reason why people buy those fares in the first place, and they represent a significant profit center for the airline (any airline, not just CO).

Actually, I think the 72-hour rule is much more insidious than HoKeY. I think it's a given that it removes the motivation for people to make phantom J bookings in order to increase the chances of an upgrade. But, on every flight, there's a good chance that there will be at least some (one?) last-minute cancellation of a confirmed BF seat due to any number of reasons (missed connection, cancellation, failure to ticket by deadline, no-show, etc.). The 72-hour rule means that these seats no longer go to elites in the back that were on the upgrade waitlist but didn't clear at the 72-hour rule. Also, it prevents upgrades into seats that yield management held back for sale until the last minute (that is, they were in J, but not R). I fully understand why at least some seats need to be set aside for full-fare purchases at the last minute, but it's a shame that the ones that go unsold can't be used for last-minute upgrades. So, those seats now go out empty, with a non-rev in them, or are used for operational upgrades (well, this last point isn't so bad, because if they use elite status as the priority for an operational upgrade, those lucky folks get the upgrade without having to pay the miles). Combining all of this, I suspect that the 72-hour rule has reduced the number of seats that actually get coach mileage upgrades to BF by some substantial amount. Not a good thing.

I've held back posting my HoKeY comments during the past few months, as every time I sit down to write my message, it gets to be way too long. Suffice it to say that I think there are some advantages to the passenger, along with disadvantages, to HoKeY. The main advantage is an increased chance to actually get an upgrade on popular routes (remember that there was some amount of belly-aching going on here about some of the European routes where even Platinums would not get upgraded). I also realize that there is a significant downside to HoKeY, especially to Platinums that usually cleared the waitlist anyway. So, there's some give, and some take, to HoKeY.

But as for the 72-hour rule (which has nothing to do with HoKeY and pre-dated it, as has already been pointed out by others), there's really no benefit to the customer. I realize why they had to do it, but I agree with NJDavid that I wish there was a better way to accomplish the same goal and not affect the elites as much.