mht_flyer

UA-NYC, again this happened for me booking my sister a UA reservation last week ORD-EWR. (booked on a cheap T fare) This was not a "last minute" upgrade option -- Her flight is not until third week of September and it offered a 150.00 one way upgrade on the spot. If she chose to purchase this it would have been given prior to any elite upgrades being given out -- thus taking away a upgrade seat.

I certainly hope this is not a precedent for the New United.

reinballe

Well. It might be that CO is simply "testing the waters" on a small scale... to estimate how much revenue this could generate. Hopefully this figure falls short of the cost the put on having increasingly disgruntle elites... putting an end to the on-sale F.

CO will also have to take into account that a logical response to on-sale F is that elites have less of an incentive to buy anything but the cheapest available fare. If the on-sale catches on, it undercuts the otherwise increased likelihood of getting an EUA when flying on a higher fare. Why buy an expensive M fare when T fare + 2 x $59 puts you in first?

sbm12

Because one is confirmed in advance and the other isn't. That isn't enough to sway my travel habits, but it is for some folks.

From NYC

I just want to agree that Scott's absence to date from this discussion is troubling. I'd've otherwise expected him to have stepped in here to inform us, for better or worse, what exactly's been going on.

As to Steph3n's comment in #45 - "Lawyers can ruin a company ", here's part of the official CO bio for Fearless Leader - "Smisek graduated from Princeton University, A.B. summa cum laude in economics, in 1976, and Harvard Law School, J.D. magna cum laude, in 1982."

Guess us Elites are the new Moose & Squirrel to him.

circitmage

aaaargh ... I fly betwen SEA-IAH-LGA weekly - I'm Platinum for 12 of the past 15 years, got the Presidential Plus Chase MC and expect that I'd be one of those offered the new Presidential Platinum status when it becomes available "later this year" ... in the past few weeks, I've been getting these "purchase-an-upgrade" offers as well when I check into my CO.com reservation ... since I almost routinely get into FC with an upgrade (EUA?) due to the fare class I buy, I haven't purchased one of these upgrades ... I'll be ***VERY*** upset if I find that those on the lower on the upgrade standby list leapfrogged me with these purchased upgrades ... since I fly the same route, on the same days with very roughly the same cast of characters each week, I've started to recognize the faces that go with the names on the list ... I know for example that I have higher "status" and fly on more expensive fare classes than "Yum, S", but not "Par, G" ... "Yum, S" is routinely upgraded after me ... if he or others now get upgraded before me, I'm switching to another carrier ... CO listen carefully - this is a **despicable, deceitful, stealth devalution** of the status I've laboriously and expensively built at CO ... if the want to disrespect that repeat business and customer loyalty, there are many other airlines that WOULD LOVE TO HAVE MY BUSINESS

Mackieman

No one promised you an upgrade. If you want to sit in F, buy F. Also, for the love of Fred the two-horned moose, paragraphs and punctuation are your friend.

AAExPlat

True, but what was promised were unlimited free upgrades using a certain system of ranking upgrade priority. That's how we all make fare purchase decisions. Intentionally undermining the very system that has been promised is not a good business practice.

SS255

I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned this (or if they have, I missed the post): Some of these buy-ups to F are cheaper than what CO is charging for ELR seats. Don't you find that odd that it costs less to sit in F than it does to sit in Row 12 on a E-145?

Mackieman

Not in the least. What was offered was unlimited free space-available upgrades. That's a big difference. No one said they had to make the space available. I like upgrades as much as the next guy but I also live in reality about what is being offered.

circitmage

Mackieman - I guess its OK for CO to tell you that they use a certain process to manage their upgrades but then not to do so?! ... CO promised me that they would follow a published process - now they're stealthily using a different one ... if you are economically insensitive to the price difference between an F and Y fare, then lucky you ... for those of us who try to make sensible purchase decisions and work for a living, we use the published rules for making the most strategically and tactically appropriate decision ... for CO to change those rules without announcing the change is the outrage, only surpassed in this forum by inane comments from apologists for CO ... only bank bailout recipients, AIG Fin Srv, Blackrock mercenaries and Halliburton execs can afford to routinely "buy F"

P.S. an educated elite consumer would logically buy a Discount Economy Fare and then purchase the upgrade ... in my case, that would net CO about $440/trip **less** than the Y/B fares I usually purchase ... so in addition to pissing off their "valued" elite travellers, CO is also shooting themselves in the foot ... by trying to get a few dollars more in a glorified Baghdad auction to reduce "space available" EUAs, they're going to alienate the very customers who are putting them back on the road to profitability

entropy

They used to target 90% upgrades for top tiers, that clearly is no longer a metric. CO assumes that the elites are elites because they are in a fortress hub, and don't have a choice. If you're in IAH, are you really going to take a connection on DELTA or AA? CO thinks you won't.

UA-NYC

HUGE difference between this and what's going on with CO. And your sister's case doesn't bother me that much.

On this UA flight, there was clearly NF availability (upgrade space). IF I was booking that flight, and I really wanted to confirm F 3 weeks in advance, I could use my Confirmed Regionals or SWUs (not available on CO at the moment) to grab it (or miles I guess). I'd say 98% of people will turn that down - $150 for a 100 minute flight? Not worth it. And I bet it might even be an RJ too...less of a deal to sit in front of a CR7 or whatever.

Contrast that with CO...the rumored $59 SFO-EWR upgrade. Sixty bucks for a 5 hour flight? A steal! What lower elite (or gasp, kettle!) wouldn't do that!?!?

I don't think anyone begrudges either airline for offering "buy-up to F" deals ahead of the EUA/UDU window. When they start doing it in that window, OVER processing auto-upgrades, for what seems to be clearly less than the Y->F price differential, THEN it becomes an issue. Seems to be happening on CO, doesn't seem to happen on UA (aside from the rumored rogue SYD agents processing UFCs over SWUs, but that's a different story...)

mahasamatman

Not always. Sometimes it's the hardware designer or manufacturer. For example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug.

Unfortunately, UA often sells F seats instead of upgrading elites. I hope this doesn't continue after the merger, but I'm not hopeful after reading this thread.

cova

The Silver Elite who is offered the $29 upgrade could have bought an F seat if they wanted to sit in F or at a minimum a B up fare. If they chose a discounted coach seat then let them sit in coach.

For all those that choose coach or can't buy an F or Bup fare - then let the EUA system work. The same argument that if you want to sit in F, buy F should apply to all. Then let EUA do it thing.

If you choose to upgrade your fare from a coach fare to an F fare - fine - you then made the decision to pay for F and then sit in F. Also - CO should not significantly drop the price of F - it should be in the same range as when the ticket was purchased.

reinballe

Well then substitute the fare right below M for M, and you'll get my point. Admittedly I do not know how much the EUA likelihood increases for a platinum on a given route as one increases the fare code.