Here is the scenario: Air Canada sells various "pass" products. These passes allow you to pre-pay for a number of trips. You generally get a choice between a "tango plus" pass, which takes seats out of a low-cost economy fare bucket and a "latitude pass" which takes seats out of a full fare economy bucket.

The carrot that they always extend to get people to buy the more expensive Latitude passes is that you are entitled to upgrade from the J fare bucket within 24h or departure. This means that if there is an open full fare business class seat available...you get it.

Well, they decided that they had been too generous and decided that as of January 8, 2008 they will apply "capacity controls" to this upgrade...and not just for new pass holders but for existing passes. Can you believe that? Folks over at FlyerTalk have a big long thread going on about this. It seems that there is always something new for us to hate Air Canada for. I personally welcome international carriers into the domestic Canadian market...enough is enough.