Melange of Mainline and Rouge- Could this be the future?
Apr 17, 2019, 9:08 am
#31
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Join Date: Feb 2000
Posts: 12,068
Not sure I understood your last sentence. I used to buy latitude passes to Europe, but no longer. For two reasons: first, as you say, because P fares are often more attractive. Plus, the restriction whereby the pass limits you to cities served directly by AC, and having been burned once by a cancelled upgrade after equipment change, and AC's inflexibility in that they would not hear on rebooking me on conditions different from those on the pass (i.e. no other airline). Which I would argue was in violation of the tariffs. But eh, life is too short to fight silly stuff.
I say that as I agree that many FPs do not get me to where I want to go. The FP does allow me flexibility, I get to go to sleep and sleep well on TATL or TPAC flights.
Apr 17, 2019, 9:14 am
#32
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Posts: 669
Apr 17, 2019, 9:18 am
#33
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Join Date: Aug 2018
Posts: 669
Yes, this is true, but most people flying on Lat passes usually fly at last min, were J prices are usually a lot higher.
Apr 17, 2019, 9:18 am
#34
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I don't find myself so lucky usually. That may be because often my wife travels with me on an Aeroplan reward, and I seldom find good business class fares on LH and their partners. Also, in that scenario, I have been caught by missing a connection with separate tickets. But really it was the last minute cancellation of a confirmed upgrade and AC's inflexibility and insisting on flying AC only that turned me away from passes.
Apr 17, 2019, 9:44 am
#35
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 3,130
Regardless of who started it, it's a reality now that travellers have adapted. We've entered the vicious cycle of airlines telling pax they're too "cheap" to warrant anything other than crap products (while congratulating themselves on record profits on the side), and pax responding by refusing to pay a dime more than they have to for what they now expect is going to be a crap product anyway.
Passengers are not stupid enough to not notice that higher profitability isn't translating into better products. There's a lot of distrust that reduces their willingness to pay even $5 more. Makes sense, then, to pay what you have to and not a cent more.
Apr 17, 2019, 12:48 pm
#36
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Apr 17, 2019, 12:50 pm
#37
Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: YHZ/YQM
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Regardless, air travel has, through service cuts and nickel and diming, become the equivalent of greyhound. You can blame that on pax, but we've reached a stage where people who think nothing of buying BMWs or dropping $1K on an iPhone won't pay a $5 premium to fly AC over WS. Some of that blame has to go to the airlines for destroying any sense of value proposition. At this point, all pax can do is cut their losses.