Originally Posted by
mother-
I doubt you need worry about not getting upgraded unless a whole heck of a lot of inbound TPAC flights take big delays and miss connections today. Considering that they want $4008 for paid F or J on your dates, I doubt too many people will come purchase tickets.
The big question is will they leave a "757-200" on your outbound, or will you board to find something lesser! Good luck.
Well, I did get the upgrade, and it is a 75E with the Sleeper Seats (not the lie flats), but it was touch and go on the upgrade.
I was on the train to the S gates at 6:15 (7AM flight) and the upgrade list on the app was still showing I was 2 of 3 on the list with 9 seats (of 16) available.
I get to the gate 10 minutes later, and I was cleared, name behind me on the list was not cleared. App showed only 1 seat available.
Get on the flight and, no lie, some Delta employee has his entire family in BE. 7 seats. A total sh** show. 3 kids ranging from 2 - 7, plus wife and it looked like other relatives (maybe older kids, couldn't tell for sure). Some of the passengers who paid the $3K for BE were clearly not amused (the 2 year old was jumping all over, refusing to sit down and buckle up for takeoff). Myself, understanding was a clusterf*** Delta has made of the situation, was amused.
This is no "exclusive experience". If I were paying for BE and realized BE would be full, I would much rather have it full of frequent fliers who had been upgraded, than what I experienced. Delta is really messing this up.
However, once people figure out you can upgrade with miles, I suspect there will be more frequent travellers up front. I personally have no problem spending 12.5K miles to upgrade, I have a ton of miles anyway.
One word of warning - you may have to call several times to get transferred to the airport upgrade list - I had to call three times before I got someone who figure it out. Don't trust them until you see you name on the list. But it clearly can be done.
As for the service, this plane did not have the lie flat pods, but the seats were fine for a day flight (nothing special for a redeye, though). The service was OK, nothing too special. The noise cancelling headphones are worthless for any frequent fliers - my Bose qc20s are far superior, so I used those. Didn't really need the pillow and duvet for a day flight - had the flight attendant cart them away.