FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Upgrading w/companions, eligibility, timing, Sep 2020 onward (consolidated)
Old Jan 10, 2022 | 10:16 pm
  #204  
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Originally Posted by tomtaylor23
When traveling for personal reasons, I normally have my wife as a companion who does not have elite status. I’ve noticed this year in particular that I’ve been bumped. For example, there was a flight last week from ATL-ORD and there were 3 open FC seats T-24. Myself and the one companion were 1st and 2nd. I wake up the following morning and I see there is a single seat left and the names below between 3 to 5 had disappeared. I’m under the assumption here that they were upgraded before me because a single upgrade space was released overnight at two different times, so I was skipped due to having a companion. Does anyone know if this is true? Have you experienced something like this before? Anything I can do so I can upgrade myself and then my companion later if the upgrade space is available? It’s really frustrating that I get’s skipped in this situation, but I guess WFBF is something I should start to consider when with a companion.

I’m also assuming this is happening to me during the 5 day window, where they release single spaces over time.
Yes, if you have two passengers in the same reservation, you need them to open up 2 seats of upgrade inventory at the same time in order to be upgraded in advance. Once the gate takes control, if there is only a single seat left, and you are 1 & 2 then they should page you to ask if you want to split up.

Prior to the gate taking control, I'm not sure what happens if you are on separate reservations -- the Delta web page concerning upgrades says a non-status member on a separate-but-linked reservation will clear at the same priority as you, but it's unclear from that whether you still need two seats simultaneously or whether you would clear one-by-one. Anyone have any concrete data points to share?
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