BritishMatt

I'm on the 6:15am SFO-JFK flight tomorrow, and just got an email saying my upgrade has been confirmed. I've flown this route dozens of times and upgrades have always only been processed at the gate?

Anyone know if there's been a change in policy for these JFK-LAX/SFO routes? I did notice that J is remarkably empty (only 5 seats were apparently paid for according to the seat map yesterday), but this is a first for me having flown this route regularly over the last 3 years.

Kwaj boy

There's never been a policy that upgrades on this route are done only at the gate. It's just a tough upgrade for medallions and many times they end up happening at the gate. Consider yourself lucky and enjoy the upgrade.

rwoman

It's rare, but does happen! Congrat's on the upgrade!!

COnned

I also fly this route often and can remember one or two times when this has happened before.

It's pretty rare, so enjoy!

BritishMatt

Ah, OK. Fair enough. I've been pretty lucky with at-gate upgrades in the past, but this hadn't happened before.

I found where I read that the upgrades on these routes work differently. Re-reading it though, they do mention that advance upgrades do happen occasionally...

http://thepointsguy.com/2012/07/tran...-series-delta/

Elite Benefits
While this route is eligible for Medallion upgrades, they don’t clear in advance like most other Delta flights. Delta normally uses an automatic system to process Medallion upgrades – if seats are available for upgrades (some algorithm which only gives out as many seats as Delta thinks they won’t sell) then Diamonds get them 5 days out (before Platinums), Platinums at 5 days, Golds at 3 days out and Silvers at 1 day in advance.

For the JFK-LAX/SFO routes, however, Delta does not release any advance upgrade space. I think in all the time I’ve been flying these routes, there have been only a handful of reports of any advanced upgrades.

MSPeconomist

TPG is an independent blogger (who sometimes posts on FT), not an official DL rep. His statement isn't official DL policy. In fact, even though DL gives the upgrade windows as 5, 5, 3, etc. days in advance, they're really at 5 pm ATL time 6, 6, 4, etc. days before the flights.

indufan

In fact, I believe that information is wrong. It's just like all of the rest of them and whatever V inventory there is or lack thereof.

baccarat0809

Play the lottery tonight !!!!

amolkold

I got upgraded Sunday afternoon as a GM on a T fare for the 5pm JFK-LAX flight on Monday. I was very surprised. The cabin was booked 13/16 when I was upgraded. It was part of a reroute because of a delayed flight. Ended up flying ATL-JFK-LAX upgraded all the way (ATL-JFK was subbed from 764 flatbeds to international 763 with recliners).

anbhc

Were you by any change rerouted or SDC'd? I had this happen once when I had a significant international delay and used Delta Assist to request to change my flights, and had an automatic business elite upgrade on a SFO-JFK domestic segment.

18sas

I agree. As ThePointsGuy said, upgrade inventory is controlled by an algorithm. But despite what he says, I don't believe LAX/SFO <> JFK flights are any different. It's just that the algorithm used for those flights releases very few upgrades in advance.

Also, I'm not completely convinced that the whole upgrade inventory allocation process is fully automated. I think that sometimes someone or some group goes in to review certain upcoming flights and makes a decision to release more - or possible to reduce - upgrade inventory.

I'm not saying that every flight is looked at individually, but rather someone may be presented with a list of flights that could possibly survive the addition of more upgrade inventory and a decision is made to grant that inventory or not.

Builderman

There's no reason to behave that JFK-LAX/SFO behave differently than any other route. If DL releases V (now RU or something?) space ahead of time upgrades will clear. On many routes, including JFK-LAX/SFO they usually hold back space because they want to actually sell the seats. Then they clear upgrades at the gate when they can no longer sell more tickets.

If you SDC to a flight and are immediately booked into V that's because there was V available and your upgrade window was open, not because the agent did you favors or something.

nebraskaboy

My better half was also upgraded on tomorrow's am departure too. I'd bet this was done to free up coach space for re-routes and other displaced guests.

LAX88

In my experience, SFO-JFK is the easiest of the JFK-LAX/SFO routes. I've never been upgraded in advance LAX-JFK-LAX in advance, but have routinely been upgraded in advance SFO-LAX. I mean, if you lived in SFO would you really choose to fly DL? I wouldn't.

Builderman

Some of us do :-P