Loose A>R Dump

I'm not sure if it is across the board, but today I was monitoring seats on the 8:30 PM 752 EWR-TPA. My wife (Plat) got her upgrade when she checked in this morning. She is taveling with our daughter (no elite status) and I forgot to split the record. When she checked in, she found a message asking if she would like to upgrade, but that Kim was not elligible. Of course, she said yes, was assigned a FC seat, and a new confirmation number for her. My daughter retained the old confirmation number.

I monitored KVS all day, and it sat at A1 D1 Z1 R0 all day. I assumed that the 3 hour EUA would run at 5:30, so the likelyhood of a companion upgrade was nil.

Checking back at 4:45 (45 minutes before the 3 hour EUA, I was surprised to see A5 D3 Z3 R2. So theoretically, any elite (silver, gold, plat) checking in could snag those 2 R seats before the 3 hour EUA assigned them. I did what any good father woudl do, called CO and spent the miles to snag one of the 2 R seats (I know it was not a good use of miles, but it is good politics). I watched for another 15 minutes before I had to leave and the KVS availability stayed at R2. I was surprised to see it not go to R1.

Well, sounds like there were a few cancellations, and the yield management software/analyst decided to put a few of those seats into the R bucket as it was close enough to departure with little chance of them being sold. I'm sure any "excess" A was dumped into R at the 3 hr mark. But I guess it still would allow any elite doing OLCI to snag the free upgrade.

It's not nil until the F seats are all filled.