beachsideflier

Hi All,

I'm a new member to FlyerTalk and apologies if my question has already been answered on a older thread.

I'm Diamond Medallion and I've been steadily booking flights on Delta for my upcoming business travel. What usually happens is I book coach tickets, and 10-15 minutes later, when I look at my Delta app. I'll see that because of my status I've been upgraded to Comfort + (WU class) seats (and receive a email confirmation). At this point I select the Comfort + seats I like and I'm all set.

Today I noticed something peculiar happen and I'm hoping you all can explain what's going on.

I booked a round trip from MLB to IAH and as usual, about 10 minutes later, I received the Delta email stating I had been upgraded to Economy plus but what was odd it was only for 3 out of 4 segments! On my return flight, the IAH to ATL segment I was still in a main cabin (fare X) this has never happened to me before since Delta introduced Economy plus unless all the Plus seats were filled when I booked.

So wondering if I had done something wrong at booking, like accidentally booking a basic economy ticket, which I'm well aware does not come with medallion upgrades, I called the Diamond Medallion hotline. The nice lady looked at my record and said she also thought I should have received a economy plus upgrade based on my purchased fare class. She then put me on hold and called the "help desk". After waiting a few minutes she came back with the following explanation and I'm going to do my best to repeat what she said.

She said the Plus seats are on a "revenue hold" for this segment (IAH to ATL) of my trip so that's why the other three segments instantly upgraded and this one did not. I asked if there's a way I could be informed of this "revenue hold" at time of booking so I could try and avoid these types of segments. She said "No" there's no way for me to access this information. Only way to know is to book, and then not receive the instant upgrade, which indicates the segment is a "revenue hold". she did say that at some point the "hold" is released and I'll automatically upgrade if there's seats available. But the kicker is I could end up in a middle Plus seat so if I want to keep the isle economy seat I have now I should go into my Delta app and uncheck the request for Plus upgrades. That's a real big disappointment because being Diamond, in 2016, I never ended up in a middle Plus seat because of the instant upgrades to Plus I received shortly after booking a ticket.

So I'm wondering has this "revenue hold" policy on Plus seats been around since day 1 and I just got unlucky to finally run into it with this segment? Or is this a new 2017 policy and I should just get used to it, which would really, really suck BTW!

thanks all for the responses!