VegasGambler

Most travelers don't know or care what an eqm is, and will never have status of any kind.

eponymous_coward

Then why offer PC at all? But they do. And they offer it to Saver fare purchasers for more than Main + PC. And you underestimate the desire to upsell.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...rating-margin/

A lot of those airlines making the best operating margins (Ryanair, Spirit, AirAsia, Wizz Air) are in the nickel and dime your customers business, or are edging over to there (Delta, Alaska).

Ever notice that plug to buy insurance for your trip when you're buying an AS ticket? That's it too.

Just you wait until your U upgrades are sold Delta-style to anyone who wants to buy them while you're waiting from them to clear... Alaska would be foolish not to. Don't think that this is going to be limited to the rabble. Ask over in the DL forum what "WFBF" means.

Flying for Fun

Valid points, everything, not just the airline industry, is going nickle and dime. It makes products and services appear cheaper than they are. It is like a can of your favourite coffee. The price doesn't increase, just the amount of coffee they put in it decreases. Rather than unilaterally increasing fares and possibly losing market in a highly competitive industry, "unbudling" will attract an audience that has no interest in the "extras." Effectively, it is increasing prices without increasing fares. Not everyone flying Ryanair is pulling out their nickles and dimes. Similarly, not everyone will pull them out for Alaska either. Comparatively, AS Saver will look more attractive than the others' Basic Economy offerings. With the AS CC you still get a checked bag. You still get a carry-on, full EQM if you are a member of MP. No cancellation, changes on a $119.00 transcon isn't really an issue. Without a waiver the fee is $125 for main. The only real difference for the 75%+ that don't sit in Premium or First is seat selection. 30B is infinitely better than any Ryanair seat. Those looking for a more "bundled" approach are probably a little more savvy and can assess the value of the different options. If not, then they pay as much or more for slightly less.

James

nsx

Ditto.

I expect AS to waive BE/Saver restrictions in West Coast markets, at least for elites, in order to remain competitive with no change fees and 2 free bags.

I did a status match from WN to AS and I will requalify as MVP by year end. If the new restrictions hold I will barely benefit from that requalification. Just when you think the grass is greener on the other side and jump, they turn off the watering system.

CalanMan

Yes and no. I agree with James that most people who buy these fares won't be buying up to PC, because they're buying on price alone, but I would also argue, ever so gently, that being willing to sell PC after the purchase of X is done, at all, is both customer- and profit-friendly.

The Saver crowd won't be buying PC generally, but if someone changes their mind, or has regret, the airline should always be willing to take their money for something better. This is something that Delta does really well, and others are catching up on. The most prominent feature of Saver fares are that they aren't flexible, so they can't sell more flexibility later on, or that would defeat the point of the product. You can, however, sell someone a better, guaranteed seat.

Sure, it would be nice if more money always resulted in a better value, but that's just not the case. If it was, NK and G4 wouldn't be in business. Lots of products, in lots of industries (not just hated ones like banks and cable providers) offer better values if you buy a bundle up-front. Media streaming services and theater or sports season tickets come to mind.

sjbsf

I fly SFO to SEA twice a month and regularly avail myself of the change fee waiver since I'm MVP Gold. Is it crazy to buy a bunch of $69 tickets for next year now, since those tickets can be changed for free?

VegasGambler

This is one of my favorite uses of the waived fee. Not crazy at all.

When I used to go to Vegas a lot (like, 15x per year) I would just buy ANY cheap VX fare for a weekend trip (I had the CC for waived change fees). If I ended up not wanting to go that weekend I'd just cancel and the money would go into my travel bank. I would also SDC to a more convenient time quite often.

I view waived change fees as the most valuable benefit of a FF program. It allows you to get a lot of cheap travel, because you can buy before you are sure.

CalanMan

Now is exactly the time to stock up on those $69 tickets for 2019. X fares are only on a very limited number of markets, all out of SAN. Come February, they'll be everywhere.

It's worth noting that in Alaska's contract of carriage, Rule 7, Section D explicitly states that:
So you should really only book stuff you intend to use. However, how well Alaska's fraud detection algorithms are at detecting the dark secrets in your soul isn't publicly known.

xliioper

DL changed the buy-up program quite a bit in May 2017. Buy-up offers tend to be shut-off when a flight gets down to about F3 based on what I have seen since then. I also rarely ever see the offer amount change. I have yet to see any significant differences in my upgrade rate to backup these claims that DL is making absurdly cheap offers to try to sell off every last FC seat. Rene keeps recycling his offer from years ago when he was on a cheap full Y DL Boxing Day massacre mistake fare (back when the offer amounts generally varied with original purchased fare class).

eddiehuang97

Did a bit more research -- the difference of Main Cabin PC and Saver PC is always $20 -- despite the buyups being $15, $25 and $30. I would suspect them to change that otherwise long-haul Saver PC is actually cheaper for most travellers. For elites that's not good news since Saver fares could take up the entire PC cabin.

VegasGambler

I agree that this is stupid but I don't think that a price drop from from $119 extra to $109 extra is going to fill the whole cabin, especially since the selection fee will actually be $139.

eponymous_coward

SAN (where they rolled this out on trial) is a West Coast market (and WN is top dog there). From everything they have said their target is keeping up with DL/UA/AA with a slightly better Basic Economy, but just slightly, and cashing the $ from people running away from Saver fares to Main. We'll see how that goes; it didn't for AA/UA.

Bretmd

VegasGambler

There is no T space on the two fights that have X. (The lower fare books into T)

ETA: You can actually book X on the flight that does have T... but the X fare is $10 more than the T.

CalanMan