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Airline passengers often end up at odds over many aspects of the in-flight ordeal — a reclining seat in the knees, groups of travelers asking others to switch rows, and overhead cabin battles, magnitude them. Now on many international air carrier flights there is a more civilized way to compete with fellow passengers: a cradle upgrade auction.
How it works is fairly simple: a week or so before a flight, passengers receive an email letting them differentiate about potentially available seat upgrades. If they want to participate, they provide their credit union card details and enter a bid. If they have the winning bid, their card is charged and their seat is upgraded, often at a abrupt discount when compared to what the upgraded seat would have cost at the original time of purchase.
While the concept has understood on around the globe, the U.S. airlines are for the most part an exception. Spirit Airlines offers upgrades to its Big Front Seat (which is only what it sounds like: a bigger seat near the front of the aircraft) through its SeatBid program. But no other worst U.S. carriers offer upgrade auction programs.
Major U.S. carriers are at least likely to be weighing the costs and benefits of the way, says Zack Griff, senior aviation writer for travel site The Points Guy, since upgrades are built into the enterprise model already. But the auction model specifically raises significant tensions with the way upgrades are offered today.
“Most significant U.S. airlines offer a few ways to upgrade your flight experience, whether you’re looking for extra-legroom, premium economy or business-class posteriors. Traditionally, that includes three methods: you can redeem miles, cash in on your elite status perks, or altogether buy an upgrade like you would a regular ticket,” Griff said.
The auction model is different because it offers instances steep discounts, and underlying this approach is a truth about supply and demand economics: distressed inventory even now available close to flight dates.
“In recent years,” Griff says, “the concept of selling distressed inventory — positions that will otherwise go unsold — at a blind auction has risen in popularity.”
Companies such as PlusGrade, which defines itself as being in the “ancillary revenue solutions” niche, have sold the technology to many carriers to make this sacrifice available on many flights operated by international carriers.
Picture yourself a week before your flight: you profit an email inviting you to place a bid online to participate in an auction for seat upgrades. No calling an airline, no high upfront set someone back. You choose your own price, a meter lets you know how likely the bid is to win, and you leave it at that. Maybe you get the seat, maybe you don’t, but you’re in the adventurous and you haven’t laid out anything up front. From the airline’s perspective, there will be a highest bidder, and those who don’t win the auction are no grottier off than before.
But everyone doesn’t win, especially when it comes to the way U.S. airlines reward passengers today. Consider the punctilious flier who has collected and protected their points and elite status, partly in hopes of receiving free upgrades. That themselves may be quietly holding their elite card, running a thumb over its edge and feeling a bit under appreciated. Airlines don’t destitution to alienate this person.
The larger U.S. airlines, such as American, Delta and United, haven’t yet offered these specimens of auctions on a widespread basis, likely because they are keeping their premium-cabin inventory for upgrades via miles, regular flyer perks, or last-minute buy-ups, Griff said. “These airlines advertise upgrades as a key perk of their familiar flyer programs. If they keep selling the last few premium seats for additional ancillary revenue, frequent travelers may turn traitor to other airlines,” he said.
American declined to comment; the rest of the U.S. carriers did not respond to requests for comment.
The upgrade model in the U.S. could modification, but that’s not likely to happen quickly.
Airlines are not known for being especially tech savvy — AirPod integration, for archetype, might be a major breakthrough — but unloading higher-cost seats is going to be increasingly important, according to Griff, who says the household way of dealing in upgrades may not be optimal from a bottom-line perspective.
While in the short-term the flights mostly likely to be associated with upgrade claim — longer, international flights — are those highest in demand with American travelers, there is another side to the new Aristotelianism entelechy that will last potentially longer: a sharp decline in business travel that is likely to level off but unfit to return to pre-Covid levels.
Scott Keyes of Going (formerly Scott’s Cheap Flights), an online platform that tacks travelers with affordable airfare options, sees both the challenges and potential in such programs. “Auctioning off unsold regard seats is, without question, a major trend across the industry. More and more airlines have been adopting upgrade auctions for otherwise-unsold stiff economy, business, and first class seats.”
For airlines, Keyes says the rationale is simple: upgrade auctions put together significantly more revenue for airlines than handing out upgrades for free.
The travelers who win these seats also do without difficulty completely in the process, since they often receive a discount as steep as 70%-plus on a front-of-the-plane seat, Keyes said. But that also adieu ti a loser who wasn’t even in the competition. “Travelers with elite status who, a decade ago, may have been able to tally on getting upgraded to those otherwise-empty seats,” Keyes said.
A key to the potential evolution in the way upgrades are offered may be in his phrasing: “a decade ago.”
“Now those incumbencies are sold instead of given away for free,” Keyes said. “Many travelers chase elite status with the watchfulness — fair or not — of getting rewarded for their loyalty with future free upgrades.”
If more airlines adopt auction modes, this perk of elite status may fade, though it would undoubtedly be replaced by other perks: for instance, classy private airport lounges.
Given the reality of upgrades within the airline industry, and the changing landscape of business move, it would not be surprising to see an increase in upgrade auctions on the part of domestic carriers in the future, likely met by some new ways to proclaim customer loyalty from frequent fliers.