I believe what they might be dreaming of - which is something I suggested in detail right here in this forum - is converting ELR into a product which matches the VX version. Not only extra room, but free entertainment, food, drinks and other possible goodies. I suspect this because of stickers I saw in the overheads over the exit rows and an employee poster's discovery they can give free DTV to a specific seat.

I'm all for that - however - not at the cost of short-changing Elite customers who should have first crack at those extra legroom seats, even if they don't get the extra free goodies that are included when someone pays the ELR fee. That fee, however, would need to increase dramatically if it will match the VX model whose premium seats often sell for hundreds more - not $69.

If I didn't make it obvious (my bad), the point was ELR (aka exit rows) versus exit rows on UA. Plenty of E+ seats so no biggie on UA. If UA tries to sell exit rows, there will be a riot.

The labels overhead simply match what UA does and help the FAs enforce the "no, you cannot just sit there for free" bit. And my read of the free DTV was that it only worked with the CC so it isn't that the FAs can give it for free but that Chase has figured out how to ignore the charge when it comes through.
The majority of elites might be in the middle (though I'm not completely convinced) but the majority of passengers are buying the cheapest tickets IMO. And there are a lot more customers than elites.

So what is your position on the ELR sale issue? Kettles should be able to get these seats ahead of Elites?

CO has a tens to hundreds more buyup, its called "F" (or ZYBM)... in some cases the buyup to F is lower than the buyup to ELR.

Not sure that is true for CO. This week, I was booked on CO408 and there were 35 folks in F (of which 29 were upgrades) and another 60+ in Y (on the upgrade standby list). Although clearly the entirely plane wasn't elite, about half the plane was. So at least in this instance, there were about as many elites as kettles.

I understand if I flew from CLE to DTW, that there would be less elites. but I am not so sure that kettles are so much more prolific than elites. YMMV.

You keep saying "ahead of elites". Am I wrong when I say that isn't the way, but service fee paying customers, regardless of if elite or not, before non-service charge paying customers. So revenue before free. Isn't that the argument? Is there a prohibition that would prevent a gold member from getting the seat if they are willing to pay what the general members pay?


We aren't talking about taking prohibiting a silver/gold member from getting something, which you seem to keep implying, at any time, rather, before giving it gratis to them, giving general members a chance to buy it, and in fact, elites could buy it at the same time.

It's like waitlisting for an award seat. They aren't going to give it to general members and prohibit elite levels from getting, it, but they are going to try to sell it, to whoever comes up with the cash first.

And the argument from the elites is that the seats aren't truly free -- they are bought with previous and future revenues. Just like award seats aren't free, they are paid for with previous travel (or credit card purchases, which resulted in Chase dumping huge amounts of cash into UA/CO's coffers).

(just like your "free" flights as an employee aren't free... you worked for them and received them as part of your compensation)

The current process as I understand it:

- Elite members don't have to buy it, they get it for free from the time of booking
- non-elite members can buy it from the time of check-in

So elites in the past and under the new system don't have to buy it, they still get it for free. But in the past, it was more likely that there were still desirable seats available because non-elites couldn't pick them until check-in time.

Which means that more and more elites will BUY the previously free ELR seats because they KNOW they are unlikely to get an EUA and thus likely to sit in the most uncomfortable Y class of all US legacies. And to make it bearable, they'll begrudgingly pay for ELR at time of booking.

A brilliant chess move by Smisek and his team. Just like with the upgrades (via buy-ups), they are using kettle to get the Elites to pay for what used to be free in the past.

Another item they could monetize like this is the boarding order. If CO heavily marketed an option to board anyone with F and ahead of elites provided they pay for it, it would reduce available overhead space and force some elites to consider paying for early boarding as well.

If I put on my weasely Smisek hat, I can probably come up with a few more outrageous ways to play kettle against elites to mile the latter group, or to pit different elite groups against each other to the same end.

I think this is the best idea I've heard since selling headsets in Y.

Or to campaign endlessly in favor of CO in an effort to curry favor and land a job with CO. That is better than to face the problems created by the unholy alliance with the dark lord.

I honestly do not care. Maybe I will once it is too late and I'm always stuck in 29E but right now I'm not too worried about it.

I think that purchases for things like E+ are much more likely to happen inside the OLCI window than way in advance so I'm not all that concerned that it will affect me either way.

Sortof.

Elites (at least gold and above) don't pay at all.

The concern being raised is that all the non-elites (or silvers) are going to be buying all the ELR seats before the elites buying last minute seats will be. So by the time an elite goes to book there won't be any seats worth sitting in left on the plane. UA has more "good" seats but still has elites in middle seats in the back from time to time, for example. Of course, no one knows if that is due to selling the E+ to non-elites for too little money in advance or just because there are a lot of elites on the flights, but that's a different can of worms.

Yes, there are some routes that are known to have more elites than not. Picking a hub to hub flight as representative of the average breakdown of passengers is, however, going to be rather misleading.

Elites will buy? I guess I am confused: Elites (other than silver) get the ELRs for free at booking, no? And that's not going to change, it's just that previously passengers ineligible to buy ELRs at booking now can fork over cash and get them right away.

But you don't need very many pre-OLCI purchases to take up the available ELR space, no? (of course, one doesn't need very many elites to take them up today, either) The popularity of sites like seatguru shows that even casual flyers are more and more interested in getting good seats. If CO then prices them right (for their revenue purposes), some one will bite.