Originally Posted by J.Edward
James, a Gold Elite, needs to travel overseas. He calls CO to book to ensure there is upgrade space on his selected flights. However, only the outbound is open for upgrades. But, being as he needs to travel on these days for business he goes ahead and books the outbound flight in U and the return in X. After booking the flight, 40,000 miles are deducted from his OnePass account and he pays a fee of $325 ($400 - $75) for the outbound and a fee of $375 ($450 - $75) for the return. However, despite several seats being open on the return when the 72-hour mark rolls around, James is dropped from BF standby as the wait list closed. The miles are re-deposited, the money refunded, and James enjoys Y on the way back.
The potential downside here is that elites who desperately want the $$ off could sill fool the system with phantom bookings that are cancelled at the last minute. If you recall, waitlisted upgrades are cancellable. In other words, I can always cancel my request for an upgrade and ride in coach.
Offer PlatSWUs to customers every 25k miles after they pass the 75k mark. An example of this would be when a customer reaches 75,000 he/she is (re)qualified for Platinum status but not for a PlatSWUs - however, when this person crosses the 100,000/125,000/150,000/etc mark he/she receives one. What a PlatSWUs would do is allow the bearer to continue to stand by after the 72-hour window. A PlatSWU would be only upgrade either the outbound or return leg (although two could be used to upgrade a round trip) While the bearer would still be subject to a co-pay on applicable fares, he/she could enjoy a $200 discount. (The reason I choose $200 was that it cost $200 to upgrade from K fares – so essentially a ‘super Plat’ could upgrade with no charge from Y/H/K vis-ŕ-vis Y/H. FYI, it would cost $100 to upgrade from N fares, $150 from B/O fares, $200 from V/U fares, and $250 from Q, I, S, W, T, X, L fares. All figures listed are based on one-way travel.)
The sheer number of Platinums on CO would lead to a huge revenue loss if all Plats are issued a SWU, especially with your idea of upgrading with no charge from H/K fares. Besides, what prevents phantom bookings in this case? Also, this leaves Golds and Silvers in the lurch (if SWUs are issued for ever 75,000 miles)
From what I understand, CO's biggest problem is phantom bookings. I don't know if there's a foolproof way of eliminating phantom bookings.
I guess attempts to simplify the BF upgrade process have to work like attempts to rework the tax code - they have to be revenue neutral (let's not get into the politics of neutrality before and after tax cuts).
One idea I had was another "tier" of upgrades - guaranteed at time of booking, but at a slightly higher copay than existing upgrades. If pax don't want to upgrade at the higher copay, they could opt to wait until the list is cleared prior to departure. However, I'm not sure if this policy will eliminate phantom bookings.
Your idea is a good start, BTW...We need to figure out more ways to make this policy revenue neutral (at the minimum)...I believe that neutrality (or gain) will pique CO's interest.