People actually DO PAY for a FULL J ticket to Europe!
 

Wow, I actually witnessed this today at the DL BE check-in counter at JFK Terminal 2. The passenger standing next to me while I was checking in had just missed her JFK-FCO flight (where she had gotten a "Z" upgrade) and the agent was trying to rebook her (even though missing the flight was entirely her fault, not DL's). Problem is today (9/16)'s TATL flights are all VERY FULL. JFK-MXP was sold out, as were JFK-VCE, JFK-CDG (for the connection to FCO), while the second JFK-FCO had 1 seat left (J) in BE. The agent offered to rebook her on a JFK-AMS DL flight with an AMS-FCO connection on AZ. When the passenger found out that it had to be in Y, she asked if there were any other flights that had "Z" upgrades available. The agent told her that the only open BE seat anywhere later this evening was that 1 single seat left on the later JFK-FCO flight; she would have to pay the fare difference of about US$3000+. She thought about it for a moment, and then said, "Yes, I'll take it" and whipped out her credit card....so yes, amazingly, there are people who have no qualms about plopping down $3000 one-way for a full J TATL ticket!

Writing from the BE lounge at JFK waiting for my flight to CDG....

Yes indeedy.

If $3000 was the fare difference, then the one-way J was more like $4000-5000, depending on how much she paid for a a ticket that could be upgraded into Z class.

Wouldn't the "flat tire rule" apply? Or is the problem that when invoking it your forfeit the upgrade? Does it make any difference if you upgraded with miles vs. PMU's? Or doesn't it apply at all for TATL?

For work, I usually find out about my travel plans the morning that I'm supposed to be leaving (M&A work). We often buy full fare business tickets as we only travel internationally in business class.

This is why AA is so much better with upgrades - I find at the airport if you have a valid upgrade and there are open seats, they will up you - while DL it's back of the bus city unless you pay....

Of course people pay for full J. Just like people pay for full F (albeit a lot less people!)

Most of the people buyig full J probably arent on this site however! :) (Investment bankers, hedge fund guys, diplomats, CEOs etc etc!)

Why would they have "full fare" if no one ever paid for it? The more the merrier. :)

Yes, same with United. Though it does not help you anyways if the flights are full....

mizzou, name me a diplomat that pays full non contract rate J?? Personally I have on many occasions bought full J's or D's when last minute travel necessitated it and there was nothing else available. Happens much more than you think. The only thing that I have managed to do in the past that this woman did not do is speak with SMS and get them to sell me a D rather than a J and save a grand or two.

Considering that the OP is based in the US, the title of the thread is indeed understandable and worth opening a new thread.

US airlines have lost most of their pricing power over the last decades, actually from the first moments after full deregulation, when free pricing was established, IIRC, in January of 1981.

Since then the fierce competition has eroded fare levels and more importantly fare restrictions to todays levels without advance purchase requirements or saturday night stays. In this circumstance, the comment by this poster is interesting

Once again, a perfect example of the state of the US airline industry, where airlines used to give out way too much for free, which resulted in the downward revenue spiral and the simple fact that a certain well educated bunch of travelers get a lot of perks for very little money.

Normally the weaker airlines would leave the market at some point, but not in the US with Ch.11, so under the bottom line, the competiton stays and the percentage of people paying full fare decreases, because bankrupt carriers like NW or DL can afford to charge significantly less being in Ch.11 and/or relax their fare restrictions, like DL ex Germany for example...

Good old Jeffrey Katz, former high shot at Sabre, AA and Swissair and now with Orbitz, IIRC, already critisized the abovementioned scenario nearly 10 years ago, when he described the chances of Swissair to get full fare pax out of ORD against the * alliance competition...at some point, you have to discount like crazy, the question is, if your airline can afford to discount @:-)

For starters, do you think all the UN delegates have contract rates? No, I think not. Yes, of course our US dips have contract rates but the government of Madagascar etc certainly does not Those guys are not flying coach!

Last year during the flooding in Mumbai I bought a full fare one way business class tix from Bangalore through Delhi to Frankfurt to Heathrow to JFK to RDU on the morning of my departure.

I think it was $6.5K or something like that as it spanned Jet Airways, Air India (codeshare with Lufthansa - worst flight I've ever been on), Lufthansa, BA, and AA.

I have had more then one full fare BE ticket purchased for me by my employers.... (I can't imagine doing it myself!)

I do think the episode mentioned by the OP deserves some deeper thought. I could certainly put an extra $3000 on the years' expenses for a Business Class trip to Europe.

But I never have. I will either book an upgraded ticket on Delta or book Premium Economy on Virgin or Premium Coach on United.

That extra $3000 could finance all of the rest of one's expenses on a typical weeklong business trip through Europe. There are few plausible business reasons to not accept five to eight hours in a narrower, tighter space in exchange for that kind of money.

Yes, I do know that many small to medium-sized corporations that don't necessarily have the travel volume to generate substantial corporate contracts do end up paying the J and D fares, and I have indeed had my employer pay exhorbitant sums for some J fares to South America and India for work but I guess what stood out for me in this case was that the lady was on a personal trip (she said she was going to meet her husband in Italy for a week long vacation) and had obviously gone through the effort of purchasing a Coach fare and using miles to upgrade (in otherwords, looking for the most cost-efficient way to travel in BE across the pond), but then in just a few seconds, decides to plop down another $3000 (which is more than what she spent for the entire JFK-FCO ticket in the first place) for that 60" pitch and 18.5" wide seat...

Hey, but why complain? If DL could get passengers like that every day... ^