I think it is simply that airlines would rather sell the seat than give it away. I also think that airlines are a business at the end of the day; everyone here knows that a business must, by defintion, make a profit in order to survive in the long-term.
I think the voucher idea is that the airlines do not want to give a voucher to one person and it end up sold, for a profit, to another. At the end of the day, think of it like this: would you sell a $5 for $30? No. Would you buy that, I bet you wouldn't! But then again, a voucher is a bit different to cash because the person buying the voucher, i.e. an upgrade voucher for $100, couldn't buy the upgrade from the airline for the same.
I think the airlines need to realize this though: if the person who bought the voucher that they gave free to their member, had not purchased the voucher would not have redeemed the voucher (as they wouldn't have had it), but at the same time, they most likely wouldn't have chosen to fly with that airline at all. I.E. you need to have a ticket in the first place in order to be upgraded with the voucher, so the person would spend money they wouldn't have spent with the airline if they hadn't received the voucher. So the airline sells a ticket to the customer and therfore makes money on that. Some would then say "AHA" but the airline doesn't make a profit by giving them the free upgrade; no, but they made less of a loss than if the person who they gave the voucher to in the first place had used it, as they would probably have bought a ticket with that airline anyway, irrespective of the voucher, so now they have won an extra customer from someone selling on the voucher. The airline may even have impressed that person so much that they were able to gain a new customer for the future, thus enhancing their business.
I don't have the answers, but I think airlines over-react to re-selling vouchers; at the end of the day, the only negative to the airline is that they rely on a certain quota/number of vouchers not being redeemed, so re-selling the voucher reduces waste and thus costs the airline more.
Sorry for making this post so long, but it is an interesting concept.
You now see my completely illogical thought process!
Originally Posted by
Fly AA J all the way
After today's earlier thread on the subject, and numerous threads on the UA forum, I have become curious about exactly why this is true. This is not a: "why do they do stupid things like this?" thread, but simply curiosity. It doesn't matter to me, I have nothing of real value to sell
. I guess I always assumed that it had to do with tax law, and that airline miles, etc. were said to have no cash value so that earning them did not count as income. Same with upgrades and vouchers. But is there more to it than that? I first came to the above conclusion when I'd hear about Southwest, and how they'd include certs with something of miniman cash value so that you could sell that thing with certs included and not be selling the cert. Anyone with the full story on such policies?