Originally Posted by
FWAAA
I wasn't absolutely certain that my view was the correct one, but now, after reading this post, I'm convinced that I was correct all along. Thanks!
Airlines aren't particularly happy about informed consumers, so DL has chosen to make it more difficult to obtain information about upgrade inventory. 1-800 calls aren't free for Delta, and DL has to pay employees to answer the calls and look up the info, while allowing consumers to look up the info online is free to DL (EF obtains this data from the GDS, costing DL nothing). That alone tells me how important it is to DL to reduce the transparency and increase the effort expended to find this info.
Delta and United are at war against the informed, discerning customer. And it's working - we, at least when we have decent choices, are looking more and more around and not reflexively booking them anymore. Of course, it's only for international travel that we consistently have much of a choice.
Oh well, the elite upgrades are I am sure going to fade away almost completely for me in the next few years anyway.