<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by xyzzy:
This brings up one thing I've never understood. I fly almost exclusively on 2 or 3 week in advance discounted tix. Why would EUA stick me ahead of someone else with the same status who bought his ticket the day before the flight and who paid 5x as much? You'd think that the EUA program would put revenue or fare class in there somewhere, no? I mean I'm not complaining. I'm just curious...</font>
As already written above if one pays full fare they get an upgrade ahead of everyone else as long as there is a revenue seat is available. As far as the other discount fare buckets are concerned within which there can be considerable spread in dollars, I am sure that is what CO would love to do (i.e., prioritize based on fare either within status or better for CO across status), but that would be against the marketed program benefits so at least they do not do this publicly.
I suspect there will be quite a backlash against making this a published policy, the unlimited domestic upgrade based on status being their #1 (and in some cases the only) markeing advantage. Although low-fare riff-raff (plat status notwithstanding) may not be contributing much to the bottom line, they are needed to keep the load factor numbers hight for PR and investor purposes.
As to what is going on behind the scenes based on fare, who knows. There is no easy way to verify. Any evidence is anecdotal.