Delta Air Lines led the industry in eliminating first class upgrades. Twenty years ago 90% of first class seats went to upgrades and awards. Ten years ago it was about half. Now only around 12% of seats are left for SkyMiles elite members. And that means on many routes and flights there are no upgrades at all.
Other airlines have copied Delta, monetizing their first class cabins for ‘tens of dollars’ – they will sell once a year coach passengers an upgrade for $26 or $40 rather than giving it free to a $30,000 a year customer.
The real innovation at Delta though is convincing flyers that extra legroom economy seats are an upgrade (“The biggest trick the devil in Atlanta ever played ws convincing flyers he doesn’t exist”). They even run an upgrade process to get into those seats.
Meanwhile, Marriott stopped promising ‘Suite Upgrade Awards’ to top elites. They renamed these certificates ‘Nightly Upgrade Awards’ to normalize the idea that an upgrade isn’t to a suite. A ‘high floor’ is somehow an upgrade.
And the masses of travelers fall for it – it works – so these programs keep devaluing. And they’ll continue doing so as long as it doesn’t cost them co-brand credit card spending (although it probably is).
Here’s the formula.
I was checking into a hotel a few months ago and the guy in front of me says:
I’m a member. I’d like my free upgrade.
Lady says you “got it sir, we will get you a room on the 4th floor.”
He’s super satisfied.
Then he says he also gets a free warm cookie.
So she hands him a…
— StripMallGuy (@realEstateTrent) January 4, 2026
Tell people they are getting something which is not offered to the general public. It can be just a bottle of water.
Tell people they are getting an upgrade, something better than what they paid for. It doesn’t actually matter if it is better, they’re made to feel special. You know when your hotel key card packet has to say “you’ve been upgraded” that you really haven’t been upgraded.
And you know what?
Guy is straight balling out w that free water and cookie
— John Andreini (@jandreini1) January 4, 2026
New York radio personality Dan Ingraham talked years ago about VIP memberships on his program. They’d send cards saying the listener was entitled. To what it wasn’t clear.
Members like the idea of ‘membership.’ American Express prints “member since” on the front of their cards, but doesn’t actually recognize membership milestones in a meaningful way (the original Centurion lounge password was ‘member of’ and the second was ‘member since’).
And they like the idea of status even more. Tell them they’re special and there’s value, even without delivering anything of value. It’s sad, and I do think there has to be some minimum amount of benefit paired with it for the statement to feel real. But it can be a bottle of water and a cookie. And if that hotel was a Doubletree, everyone’s getting the cookie.
More From View from the Wing
[ad_2]
Link da fonte
