Originally Posted by
Totoro
I can't speak about other airlines, but Continental does hold back a few reward seats for Elites. I've seen seats available when logged into my account that are not available to general members. I would not be surprised if other legacy airlines did the same. Please be aware of facts before making unfounded allegations.
United has two coach award fare buckets: N available to everyone, and E available to only 1K members. (At least on United metal - other *A carriers may differ and I'm not sure if *A Golds get extra seats everywhere. I'm pretty sure they don't.)
When flights are wide open, the N and E values are typically the same. (e.g., N6 E6). When flights are very full, I see a
lot of N0 E1. That's a pretty powerful 1K perk. The flight may be selling only revenue Q or U and up, yet there will still be an E1 sitting there. (Well, not always, but I do see it a lot when I'm looking at all of the fare codes...)