SamuelS

Title says it all really.

When I email the itinerary it says First for the upgraded flights using points. I have selected First seats. It shows First in my itineraries. But even when I resend myself the e-ticket it shows 'coach'.

Is this normal? Do I need to request the e-ticket to be reissued if I've used miles to upgrade from a coach fare?

DLATL777

Yes. Normal. DL will wait until inside of one week prior to travel to officially re-issue the ticket.

SamuelS

Thanks for the info! 6 days to departure so hopefully it comes in the next few days - don't want any surprises at check-in

monkeshine

AFAIK they take the mileage credit out of your account about a week before the flight. I have the same situation and was wondering how it works myself, and I'm still not 100% sure.

My fare says G Fare though and when I log in to the dl website I do have a seat in the front cabin (only 2 seats appears sold out of 28) though the ticket itself says coach. My flight in question is in about a month.

DLATL777

Right, so your situation is identical to the OP. You both have upgraded tickets that have yet to be re-issued. As it currently stands, you have seats in First but your ticket entitles you only to Coach. When they re-issue it, the ticket will actually read "G-First" or "Z-Business" and not just the itinerary.

StayingHomeIsBetter

Might be worth a call to DL just to make sure your record is straight.

I upgraded with miles, but the agent put into the record that I would be upgrading with a certificate... was not able to OLCI and had to sort it out a the airport the morning of my flight.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...dl-idiocy.html

OneHourPhoto

Thank you. I have been wondering the same thing.

I used miles (first time) to upgrade my SO to FC for a flight in June. She shows G on dl.com and I thought maybe Delta simply forgot to remove the miles from my account

Follow-up question then. Why the delay to one week prior? Is there a chance that they can not reverse the FC request and subsequent upgrade?

MSPeconomist

Starting a week or two before the flight, you should start calling to request that your ticket be reissued. This doesn't necessarily happen automatically and even if it does, it won't necessarily be done correctly. You need to check well before your travel date or you could be sitting in coach after a long and unpleasant airport experience.

MNAudiS4

My reissue's typically happen between 32-36 hrs before departure. If not i would call and demand a reissue. Not sure why they just do not do it right away.

DLATL777

They wait for a fairly good reason; its a pain to pull back out the upgrades/SWU if your plans change. Its much easier to wait when plans are typically more set.

travelinfoo

I used miles to upgrade to Business (intl). Even though my seats were recorded correctly, my ticket still said coach. I was told I needed to go to the special services window on check-in to get my boarding passes issued and my miles would be deducted then.

No problems at the airport.

JSFox

DL's revenue and ops systems don't always get along so well. You DO NOT want to get to the airport with this mismatch. Chances are you wouldn't just be bumped to coach, but bumped from the flight as has happened to many others. Then you get the fun of arguing with DL over why you shouldn't have to pay $150/person change fee for DL's screw up. Make sure you call and get this fixed manually well before going to the airport.

Tennisbum

Just for the record, for my last upgraded TATL flight (in April), my miles were pulled 2 days before the flight, and there was no ticket re-issue. I was able to check in online with no problems. Maybe a new protocol?

SamuelS

So I'm 5 days out to departure, no reissued e-ticket. I did call because this is a complicated multi-stop itinerary including stopovers and international flights. The Chisholm agent said that "In the NW days they would be reissued well in advance, if not immediately, but DL does them much closer to departure - and right now due to hangovers from volcano issues and weather in the US, they are getting reissued AT CHECK-IN in many cases as the reissue department just is so behind in their workload".

I explained that in YYC the DL 'agents' are not actually DL employees but a contracted general ground handling company and unfortunately these contract staff just don't know/haven't been given the appropriate DL training on how to deal with more complex issues such as ticketing, reissues, upgrades etc. when you turn up. They can't even process a companion upgrade request so I have no hope that they can deal with a complex multi-country itinerary!

I ended up getting MY ticket reissued, but my travelling companion on same itinerary did NOT. It's all a bit of a mess really.

DL really needs to invest in some IT upgrades here to handle automatic upfront reissues where required instead of pushing it back to time of check-in which is very 'Danger, Danger' in my book!

SamuelS

Looks like I spoke too soon. The reissued e-ticket was all in coach!

Chisholm again - wonderful agent, truly apologetic. But what a mess. I upgraded the domestic and Hawaii flights using miles, I was booked on a Q fare which is an eligible fare. But because I then continue on a few days later to Asia on the same PNR, when they went to reissue it, the system cancelled the upgrade because it thinks I'm trying to upgrade on the TPAC flights even when I'm not, and Q is not eligible fare class for TPAC. So even though I had THREE separate agents confirm I was eligible on Q fare to upgrade to Hawaii, now I'm back in coach again and they have RESCINDED my upgrade and all the seats I had preassigned in F.

I will probably fight this out again as I could have purchased both a T or L fare for the same dates with different routings, but purposely bought a Q fare at a higher rate so that I could upgrade the HNL flights.

Any advice? Should I just keep calling and ask for a Supervisor/Lead Agent? This is pretty bad I think...

The agent said she was authorised to do two things. One option was to collect the current applicable fare difference for a TPAC eligible fare, which at this late stage only 5 days before, is an additional $2,600 per person. So I'd have to pay $2,600 MORE just so I can upgrade on a 757 to HNL. Obviously not acceptable.

Second option was to use 80,000 miles (current rate to upgrade the whole itinerary) that they would do this "as a special favour", and ONLY upgrade the US-HNL flight - no other flights would be upgraded despite using the miles for them.


EDIT to add: The only seats in coach now just 5 days out are middle seats in the back. So not only did I pay $325 more for a Q fare rather than L or T so I could upgrade, I am now going to get really sh!tty seats both ways. So frustrated with DL right now.