100%.

They’re also creating branding around stuff that always existed, which is having the unintended consequence of creating confusion. Specifically the “extra” tiers is just a refundable ticket, yet I’ve seen people posting both here and Reddit variations of “I don’t want extra, but I want refundable.”

I’d also contend that main basic and comfort basic are two different packages. Main is bare bones with every “indignity” thrown at the passenger. Comfort basic gives priority boarding, MQD, skymiles, and access to the SkyClub if you carry the reserve card/have a membership… for less than the price of coach (today). Sounds like a great deal if you’re an infrequent flyer who is willing to pay for main but doesn’t really care about sitting in the middle seat.

This is exactly the motivation, and I doubt anyone will convince me otherwise. DL is trying to move the Overton Window from WFBF to WCBC.

PSA.

Stop being loyal to any carrier. Free Agent allows one to pick the class of service and schedule they prefer. What is more important? The seat? or the bag tag?

As I mentioned above - with a price point below Main Cabin, there is a value proposition here that is real. It is obviously person-specific, but there is a value proposition. The fact that Delta calls out in the terms that you will likely get a middle seat I think is good - it aligns expectations. If they didn't say that, I'd be pushing back a bit more on this as an attempt to trick people.

Well, that's because the primary purpose is that it's just a consumer psychology trick. If you have three prices - say, $100, $150, and $375, the $375 makes the $150 "look better". No one is really meant to buy the "Extra" fares (that weren't already going to buy a refundable fare) - they are only there to make the middle tier (Main Cabin/Regular Comfort+/eventually Regular First) look like a better deal than it is.

It's a combination of anchoring effect, extremeness aversion effect, and extends the existing decoy/asymmetric dominance effect of Main Cabin vs. Basic Economy. Delta wants to have three top level options (for domestic flights at least) and then decompose those into three breakdown options that convince you to pick the middle price and not the cheapest price.

It's dumb, but it probably works. If it moves 5% of passengers that would have booked Basic Economy to buy Main Cabin, that's free revenue to Delta.

Yes, I agree, there is a value prop and a customer base that will buy this. It's not for everyone though.

Yep. Just like the most popular wine at a restaurant is the 'second cheapest'. People tend to see it as the best value.

I wish Delta actually published their Comfort+ sales ratio as you could see the same effect from just having a decent number of PM/DMs. I know this is the Atlanta effect, but even on more leisure routes/times, there's typically at least 12-15 PMs/Diamonds on a flight (assuming a 739 or A321... and obviously that can balloon to 50+ during business travel hours/routes, and add even more if it is a longer flight).

Of course not all of them are booking well in advance to your point. But there is no way to know if the seats are taken by DM/PMs or by Comfort+ fare passengers (other than maybe at time of boarding and seeing how many Diamonds pre-board, but even that is non-conclusive because a lot of folks wait to board).

All that said, I have noticed that Delta has shifted their pricing on C+ a bit lately. Some routes (especially 4 hour+ flights) had some pretty wild surcharges - sometimes as high as $300 r/t. I'm seeing more reasonable surcharges on long routes ($120-160) now. So perhaps you are right - they have decided to lower the pricing premium which is leading to more people actually booking it, which on certain configs (looking at you 739) means sold out aisle/windows pretty quickly.

The other way this makes sense, if I can't get an exit row window or aisle for enough pitch to be able to work, I'd consider the middle C+, just to have enough distance to get elbows to keyboard to work out. This is the compromise that those of us on 5+ hour flights might make where we can show a price lower than main, and book it where company rules say main only. This only worked once in the past getting First for less than main, and screenshot got it paid by the company.

I have definitely seen more reasonable prices lately, like a $15 one way upcharge for a sub-1 hour flight. To the point where I've thought, if I were Gold or Silver, I'd probably just pay to secure it at booking.

Bag tag for me. I am so insecure that I need validation from strangers whom I’ll never see again.

I can see that. Nothing like wasting money on people who are largely inconsequential to your life.

In the future, if anyone here wishes to waste money for validation, PM me and I will provide it at a discount.

Lol. Is it awful that as a lowly Silver, I sometimes take a strange pleasure in watching a person with a Diamond tag go rolling past me, as I sit in 1A, on their walk of shame back to Main?

Book what you want to fly. Then you can be like me and make status that is totally useless to you because your ticket in F already includes 95% of those amazing status perks already built-in. (Being a domestic-only FF is really rough for the status chase, by the way.)

You’re saying this as a silver…. I’m a DM earning it almost entirely on domestic man cabin tickets.

Ouch... that's a lot of seat time. Although in fairness, I'm a Gold on UA, and barely not a Gold on DL. I go about 60% UA / 40% DL. It is a bummer because I could easily be Plat if not 1K/Diamond on one of them if I could concentrate my spend on just one. The itins and/or fares just never consistently work out for me to do that, though. The status alone doesn't justify crummier itins or 50% higher price half the time when I'm in F 100% of the time anyway.

If this will be the general trend then will work out very well for me when traveling with family. I could just buy Comfort Basic for the kids since we in any case end up selecting 2 middle & aisle seats when we travel together.

Same. My first several years as DM, I earned it based on flight segments, not on miles. Brutal. I never want to do that again.