sts603

Huh? This is so inaccurate its not even funny.

AA has always approached revenue management in different ways on different flights. AA has always been very aggressive in holding seats until departure on some routes. On other routes, advance upgrades are aplenty and in many cases the last F seats are awarded at T-4. While revenue managements implementation has varied somewhat over time, there is no radical change. And advance upgrades are very much still happening.

sts603

Umm you should be loyal because those seats are yours if they don't sell them. Which is the whole point of the program. No revenue management program has ever sought to provide free upgrades to elites on non-full fare tickets into seats that there is a chance they might be sold. That was never part of the deal. Go back 20 years, not part of the deal. It was always meant to be for left over seats. And guess what? There are fewer of them now. And hence upgrades are harder.

JMN57

Your essential point is correct but to clarify (not quibble) what I bolded is not entirely true. In the mid/late 90's top tier on DL (then it was Platinum) provided for instant upgrade to F on booking with seat availability up to a year in advance for domestic bookings. I know because I lived in SEA at the time and switched from UA to DL specifically for that feature. It was great.

sts603

I may be wrong because I've never been a DL PLAT, but I believe that was only for Y, B, and maybe another couple fare buckets. I don't believe you could buy a $99 SEA-ATL ticket 300 days out and get an upgrade.

JMN57

Nope - it think it was pretty much any fare. I was Chairman/CEO of the company and, although I could pay/fly F, I preferred to fly class of service we expected our employees to. We had a lot of travelers and an internal travel coordinator with our own in-house Apollo station to book (we were technically a travel agent too).

On UA, I was in a special services program they had at SEATAC for CEO's and they would track me as I flew and re-route me if there were any problems. UA started to pull what Special Services could do back from that office to the computer and upgrades were getting to be a pain - particularly when I switched flights, etc. We had a bunch of top tier DL fliers and they were getting upgrades much easier so I switched. I can't ever recall not getting an upgrade at sale (even on heavily discounted fares).

The only time that I wouldn't be in F was on a last minute flight and I always seemed to have an empty seat. I once commented to our coordinator that I seemed to be very lucky when I was stuck in coach and she laughed and said "you think that's an accident?" Unbeknownst to me, she had always booked an employee that was Plat into the seat next to me on a fully refundable fare. If the flight was full, it would be filled but it was the last seat that would be given away.

fly747first

That would have been AA's lost, as most of my tickets are fully refundable and there are plenty of alternative non-stop options on the very competitive premium transcon market.

fly747first

This shouldn't be surprising. AA probably has the biggest Revenue Management team in the industry. Some analysts, senior analysts, team leads, managers, etc. are going to be more skilled than others and some would unquestionably be more risk-adverse than others and would rather leave a few F seats until the last minute. Sometimes, new analysts for instance, make very elementary mistakes (e.g., filing a J fare priced higher than the F bucket on a flight that only has 2 classes of service).

arlflyer

Someone said the other day, if cost is no object, 80% of Flyertalk becomes irrelevant. I think you are providing a good example of this...