Originally Posted by
GrayAnderson
Basically, if you're getting upgraded at T-120? That's good for you if you're relying on your status. If they're holding upgrades until day-of-travel (or even at-the-gate), that's better for folks trying to work SDCs (DL upgrading down to only one seat remaining in F sucks for SDCs).
Ah ok, but the missing piece of this is why anyone thinks the needs of people seeking free upgrades should come before paid F pax. THat's the part I haven't really heard a compelling argument for.
That being said, at this moment I will give DL a bit of a pass on being stingy with advance upgrades for the next little bit because of the shutdown - if they suddenly lose capacity because ATC is understaffed due to that, I understand DL wanting to make sure they can slide paid F pax onto other flights in paid F (not to mention, not wanting to have to pull a bunch of folks from F and "replace" them because a bunch of inbound flights got stuck). That happens in e.g. "normal" WX situations, yeah, but I cannot imagine DL wanting to court that sort of hassle right now if they can help it.
well this would be nice but do we have any indication that they're actually going to change any upgrade processes to proactively get ahead of this? I've got trips with my spouse later this month and I've definitely thought about this (I can handle IROPs for business trips but it's a lot more annoying during a leisure trip).