A loophole in the AC system that lasted over 7 months?
Not quite that simple. My understanding is that tariffs have to be filed in advance with regulatory bodies, and I've oft heard the number 45 days. As it turns out, MX and AC made changes to MHDs from YVR and YYC (coincidentally the home cities of the two original proponents and biggest users of the MHD) 47 days after the article appeared in the newspaper (in mid February.) Is all this coincidence? Quite possibly, but I don't know. It just has this ichy feel about it.
Even after those changes, we were still able to use MHDs, but from YYC and YVR they were a lot less convenient, although still cost effective. Conspiracy theorists might argue it was a warning (unheeded) or a dry run, that was 'tested' until say mid March, when a full-scale plan was drawn up, filed in early April, and executed in mid-May. We're way off the Art Bell scale here of course, but the actions the airlines took seemed to be closely proportional to the amount of interest and MHD activity. And given the multi-airline nature of the response, I'm pretty sure it wasn't just 'regularly scheduled maintenance.'
Is it possible that they simply decided that their marketing promotion was successful and complete?
The thing is, it
wasn't a promotion. These fares existed forever, as did the routes. They were the regularly published J, Y, and discount econo fares. There was no promotion, at least until AC FTers started promoting it. It's just that no one ever seemed to notice it before, or put it into action. Because one airline in Canada took over the only other major airline in Canada, things got real ugly here for most of 2000. And we responded in kind.
Even if it was shut down due to FlyerTalkers taking advcantage of it, think about how many people did benefit from it in those seven months.
A dozen, perhaps less. Not many in the grand scheme of things.
How many fewer would have if the info was not posted online?
With careful management, perhaps many
more could have benefitted. And that's my warning here. If this "run"
is posted, then it may well be that a very select and very small group of people may benefit from it. And I mean
very small group.
C'mon guys! We're all more clever than that. You can't be flying all over the country or all over the world and not learn a few tricks. Just because "it's never been done before" doesn't mean it
can't be done. It just means no one has yet figured out the better way to do it.
A year ago, many people told me I had no choice -- I'd have to simply acede to the new Air Canada world. I said no, tweaked their nose, snuck up behind them and smacked them with their tariffs and danced all over their fares.
As we all know from our years of travel experience: no good offer lasts forever.
With that careful management mentioned above, it could. It's time for FT to learn a few new tricks.