Benzin

Another improvement. Finnair is starting to sell empty biz seats on auction. Economy pax can give a blind bid 278-598 EUR for a biz seat if available 5-7 days before departure.

Tier pax upgrades at the gate will surely be gone. Unless no one is bidding. Will they also rather auction the seats than give point or voucher upgrades. My guess is they will.

They are saying they are doing this to improve cash inflow. Will there be a loyal customer outflow if upgrade availability declines further?

In Finnish
http://www.iltalehti.fi/matkajutut/2...88212_ma.shtml

OH-LGG

And addition for that:

That is starting in March on AY89/90 (BKK).

If AY89/90 is next summer again LQF and LQG only and miles credited by orginal ticket bought, I would pay max 100€ return.

intuition

Hmm, more of the NZ ideas for ancillary revenue.. Ghost of Paterson is still hoovering above.

One trouble with this system is that on routes where they sell very little J, they probably won't sell many upgrades either. Take CKG-HEL for example. Why would travellers make a bid for an upgrade, efectively doubling the cost of their travel? The bidding model assumes people are familiar enough with J travel to pay something for it.

The BKK route seems a bit more likely to work, but don't they already have a pay-for-upgrade in place? Would a bidding system sell more seats than the e-mail-offers at fixed price?

From reports here we know elite pax that denies the paid upgrade is likely to get a free upgrade at check in anyway. So perhaps they don't sell very well with current system and wants to try something else.

I guess they are hoping to target people who never would buy a J ticket but willing to spend extra to feel luxurious. I fear these systems apeal more to people who otherwise would buy J, but are willing to gamble on a Y-ticket + bidding to save money.

WilcoRoger

I'm on AY90 in March - hopefully they won't sell my revenue J seat from under me

This is a double edged sword. Yes, they may get some extra revenue for unsold J seats, but, but... A savvy traveller who normally books J would book a cheap Y ticket and bid the max amount for the upgrade and saving 500-1000€ in the process.

HEL-BKK in Y is what - sub-500€? Throw another 500€ at it and you'll spend 1k instead of 2k+ (which is about the normal HEL-BKK J price) For ex-EU the saving is probably smaller, J prices being rock bottom on AY for those.

As the point earnings will be (?) according to the original booking class, I'd pay from my own pocket no more than the price of a hotel night+dinner in BKK, ie. 150€ or so - after all I do get to sleep and get an OK meal in the front of the bus.

A clever thing from AY would be to give full J mileage. By far not all pax will get it (non-FFP member, other OW FFP members) but those who do would more surely shell out some cash.



We can rest assured that voucher/point upgrades (and especially op-ups) will be assigned only for those seats not sold in the bidding. Not exactly reinforcing brand loyalty

intuition

Exactly.
Yes, I'd like that. The points would be lost on some people (which is good for AY) but for others it would be a motivator to bid (also good for AY)
This is already done at SK (with optiontown) so I guess AY also knew about this and chose not to go that route.

Exactly what was feared at NZ when it was introduced there. NZ promised it wouldn't hurt tier members upgrades but almost everyone said it did in real life terms.

Now this bidding is supposed to be done a week before and only for seats available. If so, then upgrades for points/vouchers should already have been cleared and thus not affected. But if you are on waitlist for upgrade you are right. No way they will release a seat to the waitlist before they have tried the bidding. So getting upgrades for tier members may be more difficult. Again.

Benzin

But will this affect when upgrades are cleared as the bidding is (?) available as soon as one buys the economy ticket. I mean surely they will try to first sell all the biz seats and at the same time gather a big pool of bids and only after that auction will they clear upgrades. Whatever seats are still left.

What a sircus. Designed for Me.

intuition

Is that so?! I agree, that looks bad.

Still, upgrades for points/vouchers have their own fare bucket. I took the wording "if seats are available" meaning that the bidding system would work against normal revenue availability. Then it wouldn't affect, but then again there is no way of knowing.

What are the dates for this to happen on BKK flights? It is fairly easy to go into the upgrade search tool and see if voucher upgrade availability have been slaughtered.

FFlash

But then, as a savvy pax, you know how to gamble this, since according to the link, you can update your bid anytime within the window. You will know how to...

Oh, BTW, probably this "enhancement" was "designed" for someone else? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/24116545-post97.html

Benzin

It is first a small trial on the AY89 and AY90 starting on 31st March.
EDIT: and now a few hours after the news the tool still show 5+ upgrades available.

FFlash

This.

Perhaps savvy pax see more risks than benefits with this new model, even though it may bring some opportunities. Then, AY perhaps calculates that those savvy pax are fewer % than bulk of the pax who don't know the product (=less likely to buy upgrade), and they estimate the difference be positive for them anyway (=loss of some savvy pax is smaller than gain some upgraded "unsavvy" pax revenue)

kauppias

Only reason I would upgrade at 279€/flight would be if miles were given as J...

LoungeEnthusiast

I tend to agree.

Already for some time now I have been looking at upgrading my BKK flight late May with points. Luckily the tool still shows 5+ upgrade seats available. OTOH, if it will be LQF or LQG, I might not bother.

clifford79

The Iltalehti frontpage headline that links to the story reads "Eniten tarjoava pääsee ykkösluokkaan" ("Highest bidder gets to the first class"). I already got excited, but when clicking through to the article, only business class was mentioned...

FFlash

Hahaha!

Hear that: "minicabin-J turned into minicabin-F increasingly often"

FFlash

Me too, at maximum. We should all vote for this here, in case AY reads this thread and listens