To be fair its not diluting revenue at all even if you dont have status.

Trade an empty seat now that wasn't going to sell, and free up one that has 5 hours left to sell/attribute to irrops. This sounds like a win for both parties.

I think the idea around diluting revenue is they fear people buying a cheaper seat that has a lower fare class available ahead of time with the expectation that they can SDC into the flight they actually want. Obviously the airlines have the hard data on this. I�ve always found this to be a weak argument.

On US Airlines, I myself have sometimes used the strategy before. But it rarely pushed me to buy the more expensive connection. I will buy in most cases the cheaper routing and if have an opportunity to make it work for me via SDC then great, otherwise, I stick to my original purchased flight. I think this is what the vast majority people would do, but that�s mearly an opinion.

in my case today, I would�ve definitely booked the earlier connection, but it was five minutes shy of being a legal connection.

In the case of Air France, who is primarily a long haul carrier with lots of inbound transatlantic traffic and only three or four flights a day to many cities, being able to SDC as an elite when you arrive earlier would be a great official perk. I�m sure this only worked out for me today because the new flight had the exact fare bucket inventory I was already booked on and the transfer desk agent had the technical knowledge to do it quickly.

I flew AMS-CDG-DEL couple weeks ago, AMS-CDG got delayed and missed the flight to DEL because of it. I went to the transfer desk at CDG and got a hotel (4* Marriot) and a lunch voucher of 15 euro's. I was booked in Y and the next day i looked in the app and my seat was moved from 20A to J in seat 14L. Very nice!

On the return flight, i was again in Y on row 18 with the whole row to myself. My row was the only empty row on the plane, i don't know if that is part of the Platinum effect but it was nice.

Those 150XP will be lost. You should see that as "you qualified for Gold with only 150XP instead of the 180XP normally required.".

Correct. And in the case of Gold, another example could be 299XP one year and 61XP the second year, as anything over 180XP carries over.

Is your personal example not exactly the reason why it is a case of losing revenue? You are saying that because you have this perk, you go for the cheapest option. You may not get a 100% success rate, but obviously it works often enough to be willing to risk it. While if this benefit did not exist (and there is a zero chance that they would put you on an earlier flight for free) you would be more inclined to purchase that more expensive flight having a short layover?

It depends. If the flight�s $20 more, sure. But then if it�s only $20 close, I�m not gonna play with SDC to begin with, Im just going to pay the $20 to start with. I did an Air Canada flight last week and it was $400 difference. I�m not spending $400 on the flight I like, with or without the option to SDC. At that point SDC just becomes a perk if it works out. It�s not impacting my decision at all. It all depends on each person, their budget, and what the price difference is.

In my case for the Air France situation, it�s entirely different. So many times the scheduled transatlantic arrival misses the legal connection by a few minutes and I�m forced to wait hours for the next flight since there are so few flights to some European cities. In this case, the perk has nothing to do with me purchasing a cheaper option, but when I arrive early, it�s significant in helping me catch the flight that I now have no problem making.

They offer this perk to ULTIs, who are the highest spenders, so I guess it mustn't cost too much revenue.

I rather suspect that DL's SDC rules prevent it from being a revenue drain:

* Can't change from connection to nonstop (but can change connection point)
* Most Y tickets require availability in the original fare class to make the change (there doesn't need to be an available fare), so encourages booking higher fare classes
* The premium domestic fares waive the class availability requirement: Comfort+ can SDC into the last Y seat and F can SDC into any available seat... many who are planning to try to SDC will buy up to a higher fare as a gamble on there being a seat.

Not really sure if it's a sign or a pattern, but out of my 6 most recent KLM flights in Economy, I got upgraded to business three times (once with Ms ok986), and once I got a J meal offered while seated in an exit row (after a rather embarrassing hiccup by the ground crew which clearly didn't know which countries belong to the EU and which do not, hence demanding "a schengen visa" from an EU citizen and almost denying my boarding). The op-ups happened all during overbooked flights or when there was an equipment swap for a smaller plane.

Capacities have been reduced across the board for the winter season, but demand seemingly not, especially to Eastern and Southeastern Europe. I've also been upgraded on both of my short-haul Y flights on KL in November (to and from BEG) and a Plat friend is reporting similar outcomes to Romania and the Baltics.

same here� 50% rate of op-up on intra EU flights. Hope this will continue with CDG-IST next week as its slightly longer night flight

Regarding �visa� problems - once I was almost denied boarding in MUC for flight MUC-AMS-DUB as gate personel said that I need a passport for travel and that I cannot use ID card�

Not to be a pessimist, but CDG-IST is unlikely to have any upgrades simply because the flights are usually full, even in J.

Excellent Platinum effect, bordering on Ulti effect.

Called by gate agent to board first with the Ms that was traveling on a different booking, thus had no SkyP.

Got offered J pillow and blanket onboard.
Greeted by name on the way out.

Very impressive service, way better than all flights I had since January.
I guess one has to fly CI to get the best of Flying Blue

Yes, being a ST elite plus of any ST airlines, on CI you get a personalized greeting at your seat in economy class and sometimes a tooth brush+eyeshade in a small bag(not amenity kit) for longhaul, but nothing for shorthaul(intra asia). In J, every passenger gets a personalized greeting and an amenity kit regardless of elite status.

my case was even more embarrassing - i had a burgundy passport in hand which has �European Union� (in the language of the issuing country) written on the cover. Yet, the gate agent claimed that the issuing country �cannot be in the EU�, and demanded to see my Schengen visa. It was all rather demeaning, station manager was called, who very soon realized the error, apologized and brought me to the plane. Probably mentioned sth to the purser, because I got the J meal then

Chinese airlines are indeed in general better than KL or AF with Plats/Elite+. Consistently a pillow, newspaper, water on all my Xiamen air flights and greeting by the flight attendant. What was a bit less is that on my recent PKX-XMN-DPS flight I was not allowed to use the PKX lounge (they shared it with China Southern). No complaint about the lounge attendant though - no way I could call her a lounge dragon as we tend to do, she read her instructions 3-4 times and apparently these told you should have Xiamen Air status, not FB. I realised that if I wanted to have a coffee and croissant in the short time to boarding left I would better fork out a few Yuan at a Starbucks and decided not to persist - was waived out with all egards and apologies for the limited English the attendant spoke (which obviously was way and way better than my Chinese and in fact pretty ok)