kerbo

I think the international upgrade policy has only caused massive dissatisfaction among its elite FF rather than offering a reward for loyalty. What is the point of issuing an upgrade coupon when it can rarely be used? To top that off, planes are leaving with empty BE seats or worse yet, the BE seats are filled with non revs.

I understand the need for DL to protect the value of the BE product but times have changed. Is DL really getting more revenue with this policy?

It seems to me the solution is simple: if you have an SWU and you buy a Y/B/M, ticket you should be able to confirm an upgrade if a seat is available at booking. If you buy a lower class of service ticket, then the SWU can be used at the gate if a seat is available.

There may be other ways to handle the upgrade problem but the bottom line for me is - if I'm rewarded the certificate, I should be able to use it.

doglover

welcome to Flyertalk.

tentseller

Welcome to Flyertalk, Delta section.

You are not the only one feeling this.

I fly TPAC four to six times per year. When the tails were red(NW) I was able to use upgrade on a M fare which was 35-50% more than the K economy fare. There were many times when I was upgraded because there were empty seats in WBC.

Now the M fare is 250-400% of the K economy fare, BE seats are empty and FF are not happy.

my $0.02
Grumpy in row 35/51

ContinentalFan

Welcome to FT, kerbo, it's an often discussed topic and most people would likely agree with what you wrote.

hfly

Dream on. No airline will do this, and quite frankly I do not want to see T fares upgraded on day of departure. Realistically I would love to see them drop the fare class by one or two notches, and that could happen, but never anything more than that.

TheMadBrewer

I agree with hfly -- I think it is very unlikely we'll see anybody upgrade from a LUT fare with the current SWUs -- there are just too many of them out there (i.e. 10 a year for some).

Allowing them on a space available basis (and maybe limited in number like the NW Phantom Upgrade) for the mid fares (HQK? -- not used to the DL fare codes yet) might work. Or something like YBM needs 1 SWU, HQK needs 2, LUT needs 3(4?).

I think anybody loyal enough to be Plat (or higher) ought to get the chance to fly up front once a year without paying with a limb or first born child. The mechanics of it I'll leave to others...

Thomas Hudson

OP- Thanks for offering a solution. I hope they offer up something along those lines. It makes sense.

FlyfromLAS

I can see not allowing them in LUT, but they don't even allow them in KQH. And the differential in price on DL between discounted coach and M is outrageous IMHO. DL treats me pretty well most of the time but their policy on using SWUs for international is very irritating and I have complained about it to them. Of course, they carefully explained that an M fare at $2600 was really a deal compared to a BE fare at $3200. As I recall, up until about 2002 you could use miles or certificates on the KQH fares.

thepla

AA's SWU are good on ANY fare now; even though they are space limited if there are seats day of departure I'm sure you would be able to upgrade. Over on AA board it does not seem too difficult to use way before day of departure. They are also transferable.

CO's new SWU are also going to be good on ANY fare. Noone knows about capacity control as of yet. I think they are also transferable.

NW's SWU the last two years were good on ANY fare and were almost 100% guaranteed upgrade at booking. All that was needed was discounted business class bucket open.

DLItaly

Welcome to FT.

last year I used all my PMU (now SWU) and I'm not disappointed about them.
The only trick is: buy the M fare while on the phone with CSR and unpgrade your ticket immediately.

Dovster

Just to see what the savings would be, I looked for a r/t TLV-ATL with an M fare, departing March 4 and returning March 10. Price: $2931.69.

I then looked for the same itinerary with an I fare. I found it (but connecting through JFK) at $3310.69. Total savings with the M Fare: $379.

Moreover, I don't know whether there would be upgrades available for M fare tickets on those particular flights.

hfly

Oh please, do we have to do this again? Dov, try the same comparison M vs. I if you need to hit 3 cities in the US on that trip. You'll find the difference to be more like $3700 rather than $370. For the AA and other comparisons, its nice that CO may have something good in the future, to date they had the worst. Regarding AA, in real world examples from people I know it generally doesn't work out that well. But the real question is what is their cheapest fare 6 or even 7 days out and how does that compare to M fares??

Look my M fares have doubled in the last 18 months and I hate it and want them to go down, but when posting on these things if one wants Delta to possibly do something one must post with a bit of sophistication which understands the differences and nuances between the different programs and fares. The type of traveller that could book a T fare 331 days out on a TA flight is generally (I said generally, not always) the most important customer for most trunk carriers for a variety of reasons, too many to list here, and by not giving them an option to upgrade cheaply, no carrier is really losing anything. Between that type of traveller and a day of departure J class purchaser, there are many different travellers and scenarios to take into account.

Jaimito Cartero

The problem is that M fares are usually almost as much as discounted biz tickets. Not really a deal. And if you get a plane change or other problems you may ride in moo.

5khours

The way I solved the problem was that after 600 TPAC flights, I switched to UA. This year I received 12 SWUs which I can use on W fares, which are about as cheap as LUT. My trip two weeks ago was $825 RT for ORD to NRT on W, which I upgraded no problem.

Task Force DL

Obviously, they are - This explains why they have stuck with this most unpopular policy.

+1. Well put hfly.

The point that so many of us miss is that DL is a *BUSINESS*. I would rather see DL do well as a business and continue to improve all of its products, etc. rather than give away more premium seats to us and fail as a business. The latter is the UA model. Yes, you can upgrade W fares and use UA SWUs to gain access to their (excellent) C product (I do this many times a year). But, the only solution to this from a UA business perspective is to reduce service, reduce product quality, and ultimately to do what Qantas has decided to do and REMOVE premium cabin seats or premium cabins altogether.

Bottom line - I hate the DL policy as much or more than most of you, but it is a smart business move.

TFD