rwoman

You can upgrade on AF from a premium voyageur fare (can be cheaper than DL YBM) to J (Affaires) -- just look for "O" availability on ExpertFlyer or airfrance.us. Be sure to look for the TATL leg separately from the CDG-ATH leg -- IME (LHR-CDG-USA), I can find the "O" availability on the TATL leg, but not intra-Europe....while I'd like J the whole way, the flight across the Pond is my primary concern.

vgb2001

And the difference between PV and J (and even Y for that matter) intra-Europe is not worth sweating for it. Seats are the same (just blocked middle seat), and food/drinks are sort of mediocre. Only the real TATL J product is worth it.

vgb2001

That was the point of my post. According to Skyteam, Y fare upgrades to Affaires, whereas according to Delta, Y fare upgrades to PV and PV (often cheaper than full Y fare) upgrades to Affaires

Xeno

I found O in EF and a decent fare on AF web (once is started working again) but since the DM agent could not seem to help me with this do I buy on the AF web then call DM to process the SWU?

vgb2001

Not all AF PV fares are elegible for SWU upgrade. Only W and S (not A). A is usually the discounted AF fare. Delta sells PV under W fare and usually, the price corresponds to the AF A (discount). It is therefore usually a better deal to buy Delta W fare (either calling the Medallion line and hoping to talk to an agent who knows what he's doing or directly on delta.com) and calling to process the upgrade using the SWU.
You can also buy the AF W or S (often more expensive), then call the medallion line.

Another advantage of buying the delta ticket is that you can cancel it within 24hrs without penalties. Therefore, should O disappears in the meantime or should there be any other issue, you can just cancel and not worry about it. trying to cancel a non refundable fare bought on AF (even 1 min after buying it) is challenging if not impossible (I succeeded once but it took a lot of time and convincing).

Finally, once the upgrade is processed, ask the agent to be transferred to the skyteam desk so that they re-issue your ticket immediately. Better safe than sorry. I would recommend doing so and not letting delta put your re-issue in the queue as bad things have happened.


Good luck

Xeno

Very helpful stuff but on my route the DL W comes in at $4,478. I had hope for a moment about the AF PV ticket then I read you post and saw that AF A would not upgrade.

I went to ATH twice this year (March, October) and didn't run into this kind of grief.

FlytheTail

I'm giving up. I wasted another 45 minutes with Delta. I informed the agent I wanted a W fare class, even though she said A was eligible for an O upgrade. I asked her to ask her supervisor and she came back and apologized. She was very nice, but there's no excuse for ignorance. Anyway, she quoted me a reasonable W fare of around $2,300. I said fine, book the ticket, O space was available. Hold another 15 minutes and says she can't get Air France to price the ticket. She then tells me, after consult with the fare desk, that the W fare isn't available on Saturdays, which is the day I wanted to travel. Huh? That was a first.

So, I'm letting my useless SWUs expire, and instead will only use miles for an AF ticket or will fly UA/CO. You are pathetic, Delta.

Xeno

Called DM line again and only got bad routing and higher price so I locked in DL equipment via JFK to ATH at the ridiculous fare of $3.7K. I am getting the same fare for STR which means I will lose GVA in 2012. I am so glad I purchased LHR before these fares jumped so high.

akonradi

I'm flying XXX-CDG-YYY-ZZZ. When looking on expertflyer, the married segments show W0 under the Delta codeshare CDG-YYY, but W9 with the AF flight number.

Can DL issue a ticket with the AF flight number and pull from the W inventory there, or am I limited to what shows up for the Delta codeshare?

DLNYC

You can do that, but the W fare on AF is more expensive than W on DL. Were there any S fares available? This is the cheapest AF PV fare eligible for TATL upgrade.

SDQBound

Booked CDG-JFK/JFK-BOS-CDG Earlier this month. Delta 006 ticket stock. CDG-JFK Air France coded flight on Premium Economy (S), JFK-BOS-CDG Delta Coded flight on First/Business (F/S). No O availability at the time of booking, but was ok with either waiting or flying PV. Today some availability on O appeared so called Delta Ticketing Office in France. They confirmed the availability, and got the ticket upgraded right away.

I asked the agent to reissue my ticket, but he said it's too early (flying out on Dec. 23) and it will be placed on the Queue. He also said that I was going to be charged the departure luxury tax. As he is being reluctant to reissue the ticket, can I just call Delta later and get another agent reissue it?

vgb2001

By all means, do! Ask to be transferred to skyteam dek. You will only have peace of mind once the ticket is reissued! Congrats on your upgrade!

SDQBound

Thanks. I called back. At the beginning they said they could not transfer me, but then I explained to them that I didn't have time to deal with such issue at the airport, so they transferred me. They deducted the miles, but, for some reason, the system couldn't collect the luxury taxes from my CC, so the process was reverted and got the miles back. Ticket still not reissued.

standardgirl

After going through the entire thread, may I summarize it as the following:

For Air France operated TATL:
- for flights originating in the US, one can upgrade from a Delta purchased (006) ticket with Delta flight number in W class to O class. This can be done by phoning Delta. The actual procedures that need to happen on Delta's side is not important, but it basically involves Delta changing the ticket to AF flight number and processing the upgrade. This is clear.

- for flights originating either in the US or in Europe, once can always upgrade from an AF booking class of S or W into O, regardless of whether this initial S or W class ticket was purchased from AF or from Delta (is this correct that the ticket does NOT have to be purchased from Delta?) The upgrade needs to be done by phoning Delta since you're using Delta SWU/miles. AF A class is not eligible for upgrades.

- for flights originating outside the US (aka, originating in Europe), Delta does not have the ability to change a Delta (006) ticket/flight number W class ticket to an AF flight number. And hence, a Delta W class originating outside the US is NOT possible to upgrade. Is this understanding correct? If so, this would mean that for those originating outside the US, the only way to upgrade would be to buy the more expensive AF S or W fare.

Can people comment on this? I am hoping that this will provide a useful summary for reference.

jmertic

I've never had the luxury tax collected when doing this upgrade. Is this a standard requirement that is often skipped, or something that doesn't apply and agents think it does?