Originally Posted by
busdriver11
I am confused about the upgrades to D1 being available when there is Z class inventory. What if there never is Z class available, but there are still plenty of open seats? Will they wait to upgrade to D1 within 24 hours, or leave those seats empty? I'm looking at flights that I purchased PS for, that have 25 seats open in D1. No doubt it will get fuller as time gets closer, however, I don't see many flights at all for that route that have Z class available. The route is SEA-AMS.
I also don't see any indication that I'm on the waitlist, though they claimed to have put me on there. Perhaps it's not something I can view. They also claimed that they put me on the waitlist for the second leg, AMS-NBO on KLM, and told me that I had to call Delta 24 hours before the flight to try to get upgraded on KLM. Is this accurate information that they gave me?
Delta has gotten stingy about opening Z class even when they have plenty of seats seats and even when other airlines have low business fares available on the same routes. Often times from NY both AA and UA will be SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than DL because of that. Seems that Delta rather sell less full fare tickets and then if they still have capacity start selling upgrades to the bottom feeders waiting for "a deal." Suppose when you charge enough passengers 1.5x-2x what the other airlines charge you can then afford to give $899 upgrades to people who wouldn't have otherwise bought the seats.
In the past year I have flown UA & AA more times than I previously did in the last decade because of that.
However to what I think is your question -- you do not need Z inventory opened up within 24 hours in order to get a seat off the waitlist. In theory you should receive the seat if any seat remains -- but again, revenue management may lower that upgrade price to a point where there won't be any seats left when for you to get in the last 24 hours.
I don't risk it -- I will only use my GUCs where I can confirm to DL