Originally Posted by LeSabre74
What a great idea, I'm walking into my local GM dealer today armed with your tactics! I've been buying Chevrolets from them for years, but now I realize that they should actually give me an Escalade this time, even though I'm only paying for an Impala. After all I'm a loyal long-term customer, so there shouldn't be any issue with it, right. They can give me the one they've assigned to their sales mananger.
No they wouldn't. The car will still be there tomorrow and another prospect will walk in tomorrow. With an an airplane seat though, that seat won't be there tomorrow. It disappeared after take-off. All that money and effort that was spent on putting that seat on the market all shot to he**. The airline got nothing for it. Now multiply that loss by the number of empty seats each day. What a huge waste of money and effort.
Better you should fill that seat at the last minute with flyers willing to pay a few extra points or whatever for it at boarding time than just let the seat vanish. At least the airline gets something for their effort. Even if they gave the seats away to selected customers there would be a buzz and PR driving up AC's numbers.