randidliyo

I know that it's happened to some of you, but yesterday was the first time it's happened to me.

Was sitting in the gate are for my SAT-ATL flight. I was assigned 10B, and was number 2 on the list for 6 seats about two hours out. About an hour from departure, I looked on Delta.com to see how my position had held up and low-and-behold I'm now seated in 5C. Liking a window, I went up to the desk and asked if there were any window seats. The agent said, "Sure, 1A or 1D". So, I took 1A, took my seat in the gate area and waited for the flight. An hour later, it's time to board, I give my boarding pass to scan, and it beeps and spits out 10B. "We would like it if you sit here, please", said the agent scanning my BP. "What was wrong with 1A?" He looks at my BP astonished and says, "Hmmm, how did you get this?" "She gave it to me a little while ago". "Hmmm, well I didn't have any upgrades today".

Weird, so I walked down and stowed my stuff on the plane, but something just didn't seem right, something was fishy. So, I made my way back to the gate and the GA saw me and said, "Did you leave something?". I told him that I wanted to know what happened to my seat. Then, he told me that he had 5 unassigned seats in FC and had to downgrade several people in order to give those seats. 5 unassigned seats in FC less than an hour before departure?

Seems weird, right?

At least I still had 10B, but I hate middle seats. I only chose that one because at the time I was #1 for 7 seats.

randidliyo

MSPeconomist

I would have thought that five unassigned seats for passengers with FC tickets would have been accounted for in the numbers at the top of the upgrade list on the app. I guess there could have been five late SDCs directly into FC or even five IROPs bookings of FC passengers, but at SAT this seems a bit unlikely to me. Also, if a FC passenger decides to SDC after some gate upgrades have been given out, AFAIK DL policy is to permit the SDC only if there's an empty FC seat, not to remove an upgraded elite for the person. Otherwise they could have done SDC into coach (and probably not been confirmed on the flight and therefore on the upgrade list until after GAs have processed the upgrade list in your case, so that having higher priority wouldn't have helped them). Also AFAIK SDS with a FC ticket means SDS for a coach seat. I'm assuming that there was no aircraft change.

Did you have any sense that a bunch of people in FC all knew each other? If so, it could have been a bunch of business colleages who did SDC together or a bunch of nonrevs.

IMO you should raise the question with DL. Ask what happened and why.

It's too bad that DL FF accounts no longer show "class flown" when miles post. You might want to call DL right away and ask them to tell you what seat you had on the flight according to their records, although the 10B ticket printing out at the scanner makes it sound like you officially flew in 10B. It also sounds like perhaps DL released some award inventory close to departure and you were automatically upgraded before the flight went under airport/gate control, but normally this happens at T-3. Am I correct that the agent who gave you 1A was not the same GA working the flight at boarding time? Was that person gone from the gate area by then?

randidliyo

Yes, it was a different person and I didn't see the original. On the inbound, a passenger had to be carted off on a stretcher so they were running late with boarding.

rbm

HDQDD

I would file a complaint on this one. Seems shady. Not sure that DL will actually do anything about it, but they should.

I was downgraded a few weeks ago on a CR9 because the FA jumpseat broke on the way in and she had to move to 1A (my seat). They were nice about it and gave me a $200 voucher at the gate. I really wasn't expecting anything, so I was quite impressed with this.

OHDL1

That's my guess. Wasn't there weather yesterday or the day before in SAT?
I think there were late bookings using the FC availabilty...after upgrades were mistakenly run. BTW....what was the flight number?

DL2SXM

WFCBFC

Often1

All OP gets here is speculation. Maybe they were paying F pax who misconnected and maybe they were the GA's relatives. Who knows.

Just send a short note to DL. 2-3 sentences absolute maximum. They will take a look at who keyed in what and when. OP won't hear back with more than a smallish voucher/miles, but if the employee was taking care of buddies, they'll deal with it.

Esltroy

Thanks for not adding to the discussion. (Not)

OP check with delta. They may be able to make it ok with you.

brkandjfk

I've been the cause of such a circumstance at least one time in the past.
Had a mechanical and was rebooked on a later flight as it canceled and received a "First Class" seat request card. This was a purchased FC seat.
The boarding pass / seat request said "first class confirmed" but with no seat assignment. My name did not appear on the UG list.

There was a Redcoat assisting and that's who I initially contacted when I got to the gate and she told me that the seat request card would be used for boarding and that it would print my FC assignment when I boarded. (normal procedure)

The GA began boarding while the Redcoat was down the jet bridge. The GA first processed the upgrades (and I watched as the monitor showed the # available FC seats reduce from 8 to zero over two cycles). I seemed to be slightly aware that the situation was odd, but didn't really grasp that my "Confirmed" FC seat wasn't. I approached the podium and handed her my seat request card, and she handed me a seat assignment in row 27. I simply asked her what happened to my First Class seat, and she replied, there are no further upgrades. Ma'am, I had a confirmed FC seat, and only needed a seat assignment, not an upgrade.

Redcoat then arrived as the GA was saying there was nothing she could do, adding that she had never seen a seat request on a FC seat before.

Redcoat solved the issue by downgrading the last of the upgraded folks.

Just one data point. And this was about a year ago.

ND76

On a DTW-LAS sector in April, the gate lottery upgrades were being processed between 75 and 45 minutes before scheduled departure. I got what turned out to be the second to the final upgrade. The man sitting next to me got the last upgrade; then the GA came on board and unceremoniously told him to go back to Y as his seat had just been sold. There ended up with one checked-in F pax not boarding the flight, and the GA did go back and fish my original seatmate out of Y and give him the vacant F seat.

I think it stinks for DL to give out an upgrade to someone and then embarrass him or her by, in this particular case, rudely and abruptly taking the man's F seat away.

Often1

Embarrassing is a bit over the top. It's embarrassing if the guy poached an F seat and got caught, but this is a business issue.

The problem with this one is that it really does suggest that domestic UG's should not run until T-15. At that point, any unoccupied seats are fair game. But, there would then be all manner of righteous indignation on FT from people complaining that they had to wait until T-15 for their freebie UG.

DL2SXM

when I desire F, I buy F, otherwise I am content to sit with in the cabin I paid for.

Bicostal

Being downgraded is embarrassing. It leaves the impression with others that your are a seat poacher. It's a customer service issue and a operational process issue that is Deltas responsibility. No matter how a duplicate seat assignment is resolved it is Delta that created the problem and it is Deltas responsibility to make both parties whole.

I am of the opinion once an upgrade is issued, game over. The injured party is the late arriving, not misconnecting, original FC passenger and they should be offered appropriate compensation and accommodation on the next flight if they so desire. As for delaying gate upgrades, that sets the stage for late departures and we all know that's the last thing Delta wants.

Poor operational execution is not the passengers fault.

MSPeconomist

In this case, it sounds like the GA was somewhat rude to the upgraded/downgraded/upgraded elite, although I admit that it would be hard to tactfully tell someone that they must move to coach immediately because you sold their FC seat to a kettle at the last minute for only a small amount of money. Basically the GA told an elite that a little cash right now was worth more than the elite's loyalty over a longer period. It's not only embarrassing and inconvenient to move in such circumstances, but it also gives others the impression that the elite hadn't been willing to spend the money for the upgrade, although the truth probably is that the elite was never given such a cheap upgrade offer.

Once upgrades have been processed at the gate, no one should continue to sell those seats and the computer system should prevent this from happening.

SJC ORD LDR

It's happened to me once before. I complained and got an eCert.