<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by EWR-COflyer:
In all honesty couldn't those be Gold/Plat Y-fare purchases, then pulling the FC seat from the A bucket?
Doesn't seem that unreasonable for that route... I'm in the same boat next week with trips to ATL & IAH. F0 all the way, but I'm 100% sure that some Gold/Plats will purchase Y-fare EWR/ATL seats... I think that's why they hold 'em in A.
Personally since I buy the lowest fare possible, I don't like it, but it does make sense for high volume corporate/Y-fare routes.
You know, for every one of "us" that buys the low-fare tix waiting for EUA there's a guy buying Y-fare and *****ing that EUA gave up the seats that he was counting on... I'd be willing to bet that CO's corporate customers harped on them about availability of last minute FC seats from Y-Fare... you can bet your a$$ that if I was paying $1,200+ from IAH/EWR and didn't get a FC seat I'd be going ballistic.</font>
That's where the whole loyalty marketing scenario breaks down.
If I were to pay $1200+ on a flight with no notice, you'd bet I wouldn't give a rats a** who I was flying with. Give me the best seat available on the most direct route at the best time. You'd bet that almost any corp travel group or agent worth their sort can get the upgrade from a full fare Y ticket, forget status.
The folks that loyalty marketing schemes are supposed to court are the folks planning to move their business to one airline or another - and the key word here is planning. These are the people who consciously decide to fly one airline or another. And from all I have seen, Co has done a terrific job of alienating them for quite a while.
[This message has been edited by NJDavid (edited 02-26-2002).]