Does AC oversell Premium Economy?
 

We all know that AC does not oversell J. But what about PY?

Does anybody have any evidence of experience wether or not PY customers are likely to be found in an oversell situation?

My personal experience suggests yes, but I'd be curious to hear about other's.

The reason for not overselling J is that pissing off passengers who pay a premium is perceived to be horrible for business.

As such, if J is full, I would except that they would not oversell PY (though I'd be curious to hear if they have).

But if there are 5 seats free in J, I see no reason why they wouldn't oversell PY by 5, knowing that they're going to be doing e/op ups.

That's never stopped them before ...

Right. Unless they're willing to V/IDB PY pax, which have also paid a (admittedly smaller) premium not to be pissed off.

One would think that a hypothetical overbooked PY passenger, assuming space cannot be made by upgrading someone to J, would get put in Y and then someone in Y would get bumped if necessary according to the normal priority for such things.

Yes, delete half the words in my sentence, then respond to it.

That's context.:rolleyes:

But they have paid a premium.

How often do you think a Flex+ fare is denied boarding?

It would not surprise me if AC thinks a downgrade is worse than IDB. Because a downgrade affects a non-cheap passenger, whereas IDB should be someone without status who bought a Tango fare and didn't pay for seat selection.

Going by my pre-flight manifests, I have NEVER seen PY oversold. Not once.

The only scenario I can see would occur during a full-out equipment swap from a full 777 (24 seats) to a 787/330 (21 seats). Personally, I've not experienced that.

Premium cabins are not intentionally oversold. But not getting bumped is another story. I remember a while back there is a story saying someone got bumped from J because a DYKWIA airline executive travelling last minute.

Was that AC though? Or are you referring to another popular NA airline?

AC.

On AC indeed. This was at least three years ago. That said exec actually said DYKWIA.

Oh my. That is truely terrible :(

I remember that story being a load of crap :p

Bumping this thread from last year as previous answers were speculation/observation. Has anyone had any recent experience with this or received any sort of confirmation about AC practices on this matter? I'm thinking of booking a flight with outbound in PY and return in Y, with the goal of eventually upgrading the return. Unfortunately there does not appear to be any IKK in PY, so am trying to figure out if a flight that is O9E9N0 has a good shot of eventually having more award inventory opening up, or if the numbers are meaningless as the cabin could actually be sold out (although I per earlier posts in this thread I believe it is unlikely that AC would oversell a premium cabin). I have several flight options on my return and would like to increase my odds of eventually getting PY on the return!

I don't think it's unlikely that they'd oversell PY.

They won't oversell J, because the result is a downgrade to a paying passenger.

But overselling PY is the same as overselling Y. If you have more checked in passengers than seats, you upgrade them. That doesn't cause you any harm.