Does AS ever discount premium class seats on day of travel?
 

I am taking a flight next week on AS to Hawaii. Does AS ever discount the fee for selecting premium seats on the trip date (or closer to trip date)?

I looked at the seat map and at the moment, there are lots of premium seats available for selection. The current price is $79/seat, which is a little more than I want to spend.

Nope. $79 is already pretty low considering BOS-SAN for example is $119

I have never seen a discount offering for Premium Class. However, a friend of mine travels on his Mother’s passes (she retired with a lifetime freebie) and he has flown as a standby passenger and been seated in PC despite not having status.

Flying enough to earn MVP, Gold or 75K status will get you free premium class seating at T-48 hrs, T-72 hrs, at booking (respectively). Probably will cost you more than $79 to earn those, but that's another way to get it "discounted".

As a Gold I have this year been on several flights where the only choice for me was a middle PC seat. One of the reasons why I decided that I wouldn’t spend a lot of money renewing Gold (instead burned more miles on award travel). I think I spent more time in exit row than in PC.

So if they do have open PC seats at T-24, why would they not try to sell them at a discount, especially if the alternative might be to give them to Basic Economy passengers who don’t have seat assignments? Perhaps to avoid pissing off (*) passengers who paid more? Or technical limitations?

(*) I assume language used in congressional testimony is acceptable here; if not, apologies and mods, please edit :)

Because if people know that they'll likely be discounted at check-in or some time close to departure, many more people will wait and gamble on being able to snag the seats at a discount.

That hasn't stopped airlines from selling first class upgrades at discounted prices, IME.

The pricing isn't always predictable, and often gets more expensive as you get closer to departure. As an example, this week I had the chance to buy an F upgrade on UA for about $310 shortly after it was booked (about 6 days out). A few days later it was up to $700, and by the day of the flight it was $2300. UA does similar, though less extreme, pricing with E+ - it generally seems to go up by $10-30 between when the ticket is purchased and the day of the flight.

Pricing for premium and F upgrades is probably more likely to drop if load factors are low, but lately I've mostly seen them going up rather than down as you get close to flight. In principle, AS sells F upgrades cheaply at the gate, but I haven't seen that in a long time, since load factors seem to be high and there are enough elites to take all the U space with free upgrades.

Would they fill a PC middle seat before having all standard middle seats filled? I like having a middle seat open between in PC occasionally which is nice. .

hopefully not.

Two ways to improve your chances on that are a) exit row, because they don't seem to autofill (you have to accept the requirements online when you book them) and b) pick your window or aisle near the back of PC. If/when they start autofilling PC middles it will probably be front to back. But they shouldn't start filling PC middles with non-paying PC until all the non-PC middles are full.

I recently saw a strange change on an Alaska flight. Originally, the exit rows were listed for a premium; however, a week or so before the flight, the seats were available as regular economy and stayed that way thru flight date. I am a 75K, so I am often checking seat availability on the maps (especially for possible upgrades to first class). This is the first time I've noticed the seats changing from preferential to regular economy.

Sounds like an equipment swap.

While I've had that happen with increasing frequency, in this case there wasn't a swap, which is what surprised me. Also, has it been your experience with equipment swaps that the exit rows become free to anyone? I've only seen it go from premium to preferred in the past.

A320 to A320 isn't a change of gauge, but the assigned aircraft went from a legacy VX configuration (8F, 18 PC rows 3/16/17) to one with a modified interior (12F, 24 PC rows 6-9)