Recent experience atl/jnb?
 

Does anyone have recent experience upgrading with certs or miles on the ATL/JNB flight?

Just flew that route a month ago but had to buy discount BE. I had been looking for award opportunities, even at "Medium" and could not get one and also did not get any UG inventory that was available both ways. Nice flight and good service but not worth the $6000 I paid. I will never do that again.

I'm assuming all the upfront seats were also occupied?

If you are flying ATL-JNB on Saturdays and JNB-ATL on Fridays it is almost impossible (I am sure someone is going to chime in saying not so :rolleyes:) to upgrade from B/M fares using SWU. The only reason I still fly Delta is due to that route and I do it often enough that I have seen the pattern.

In my opinion paying $6000 for a lie flat seat that has a width of a coffin is not worth it. Nor is paying for B/M fares knowing that it will never ever clear on those flight days. Just get a U fare ticket on that route and enjoy the Delta hospitality of running out of water/soda/juice midway through the 16 hr flight...

Yes, front is full on those flights and mostly are paid B/E travelers along with a bunch of non revs. I have noticed sometimes the purser comes along and calls out for passengers and move them up front after the doors have closed. I guess they were Delta employees or "optimists" who purchased B/M class fares. But they happen only on mid-week flights.

Just my two cents: I have yet to fly an airline where any ticket is worth $6k in my opinion. I just flew Emirates from DXB-JFK because my KLM flight to AMS was delayed (which would have caused me to miss my connection to DTW). Yes, Emirates is amazingly nice. No, not even on them is a business class fare worth it (same with first). To me, I rather sit in coach and spend 6k on something else in life. If you can't handle sitting in coach for 12-16 hours on a long haul, you're a pansy. Yes, getting Business is nice, but for the cost I could bring a personal masseuse along in coach w/ me and a hooker (I could cost save by making them the same person). Furthermore, my company has laid off 40k/year admins, how can I look myself in the mirror because I "need" a business class seat?

That said, I have done this route 2x now. It's not too bad. Bring a lot of personal entertainment. Both times Delta seemed to have run out of everything you wanted about 8 hours in (as mentioned) so make sure you bring your water. I am using my PMUs right now as coasters, they're worthless. Delta might as well have sent me a coupon for free 2-dollar headphones to show their appreciation for my loyalty, oh wait.

I got it, but what I want to know is if anyone has had good luck upgrading from the standby list?

According to the rules spelled out below from the SWU certificate: You wait list and then 3 hours prior to departure you asked to be placed on the standby list.

Second question is does a Diamond ever trump a Non-Rev? What are Delta's priority rules?

Passengers on the Airport Standby List will be accommodated according to Delta's priority rules, which Delta reserves the right to change at any time.
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Reservation Waitlist: If the upgrade is not available at the time of request, a Medallion member and/or travel companion holding confirmed Coach Class reservations on a flight may request to be placed on the upgrade waitlist. Passengers on waitlist will be accommodated according to Delta's priority rules, which Delta reserves the right to change at any time. Waitlist is not available on KLM operated flights.

Airport Standby: If an upgrade for the Medallion member and companion (if applicable) is not confirmed from the reservation waitlist at least three hours prior to departure, then the Medallion member and companion may request to be placed on the Airport Standby List, provided that request is made no less than 60 minutes prior to flight departure. Passengers on the Airport Standby List will be accommodated according to Delta's priority rules, which Delta reserves the right to change at any time. Airport standby on KLM operated flights is handled at the discretion of KLM and is not guaranteed.

SWU upgrades come from a completely different bucket than the seats released to an NRSA. SWU upgrades are processed and allocated based on revenue managements willingness to release seats whereas NRSA dont get on to the plane unless those seats arent occupied.

The ATL-JNB run has been extremely full since the World Cup started and I would expect that you havent seen many people scoring the upgrades via SWU during that period because a majority of J seats have been sold.

When I tried the B/M upgrade route. I was told I was on the waiting list (3 weeks) and on the day of the flight I realized (asinine Delta rules) that I get dropped from the list and when I check in for the flight I should request to be added back to the list :rolleyes:

The look on the Delta agent's face in Denver while she added me back to the list told me the whole story. I just felt like a sucker who had fallen for Delta's marketing message. I still thank the NWA agent who tempered my expectations when I started on this route - if you do not get upgraded at the time of booking, the chances are quite low that you will get it on the day of the flight.

When I landed in Atlanta and queried about the status of my upgrade the answer was quite brusque and short - "No, B/E has checked in full". After that experience and having called Delta reservations before making the bookings on upgrade availability, I just book U/T class fare and make myself comfortable in Coach.

No. I do not use Delta Reservations to make the booking as I get dinged $20 even though the fee should not apply to DMs. Not worth my time arguing with Delta.

I am still laughing.:D^

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

Me too!!

Thanks to all, a lot of interesting and funny comments.

majorwibi, here's an update to the rest of the story. After an earlier post I emailed Delta to find out specifically:

"Hi, I've copied the below from the SWU located in my profile. I'm interested in learning what the current priority rules are regarding filling empty seats in BE on international flights when Z class is not available? Specifically, if I meet all the criteria for an upgrade to BE, Y,B,M coach fare; use miles or SWU to upgrade, will a non-revenue passenger have priority? I realize Delta may have operational requirements to move certain employees to prescribed locations and understand this may be an operational priority but what about others?
Thanks.
v/r
Delta First"

Dear DeltaFirst,

Thank you for your e-mail to Delta Air Lines.

Being a Diamond Medallion and meeting all the criteria mentioned sounds excellent. Revenue passengers always have priority over nonrevenue passengers.
(At least they are supposed to.)

DeltaFirst, thank you again for giving us an opportunity to respond to your concern. We very much appreciate your Diamond Medallion loyalty to Delta and look forward to the privilege of serving you again soon.

Sincerely,

Ginger James
Medallion Desk
www.delta.com

Open question:

Has Delta ever come out and stated that any seat open is available for upgrade on day of departure or does it need to come from special inventory? If its the former then Rev will be NRSA but if its the latter then there is a good chance that NRSA could beat Rev due to the available inventory not being open.

They have. It may have been SMI, circa October 2009 when the 2010 program benefits were announced.

That's right they did and at first I thought it was going to be a Diamond perk but I was reminded that it's part of the terms of the SWU but we all seem to forget about it. I have used it successfully in the recent past but seems I keep seeing these threads (which no doubt are true) about international M fares being ridiculously overpriced when there is no Z inventory. This still seems to be an avenue to move upfront but not too many using the system.

I think that's because very few people are willing to pay a $2k+ premium simply for a *chance* that there may still be a BE seat open on day of travel.