Originally Posted by
gleff
The increased mileage price of an upgrade is disappoint, but it makes some sense. If you have a more or less fixed supply of a product and more customers than seats, raise price. 15k each way is the standard as of a few years ago. I'd rather see a two-tiered pricing structure, 10k for flights - say - under 1500 miles and 15k for flights over 1500 miles. But I can understand the increase.
But only permitting mileage upgrades on H fares or higher is a pretty drastic change.
Either move go a long way towards balancing supply and demand. Doing both is seriously punitive.
I agree. As an MVP my primary use of AS miles is mileage upgrades. This new move will drastically reduce the value of my remaining miles. If I'm not going to do many mileage upgrades in the future I don't have much reason to accumuilate more AS miles. (Unlike some others here, I've had bad luck getting the award tickets I want on AS.) Since a lot of my miles come from hotels, car rental, etc., I'm already providing AS with revenue for the 30,000 miles. Requiring the higher fare in addition is too much, especially on shorter flights. I'll do the math to verify but it looks like it's time to stop getting AS miles for my hotels, etc. AS won't care, but it will make me feel better.
By the way, if they're actually concerned about keeping elites happy why not let MVPs upgrade for the 30,000 miles without the higher fare?