vgb2001

I did find some O on return CDG to US after thanksgiving, but not on the red eye there before thanksgiving, unfortunately. I will call to have them book W and upgrade the return to O soon. Hopefully, I'll find an agent who knows about it. It's always hit or miss.

PersonalFlotationDevice

I haven't done this trick for a year or so, but I tended to notice they sometimes released O inventory close-in. Twice I bought DL W basis on an AF flight where the up-front loads were light...EF alerts let me know a day or two before that space had opened up. The phone call is a challenge as everyone here knows, but they were able to do it.

mikepa

It's two days out for an AF flight MIA-CDG and zero "O" availability, but there's 4 BE upgrades available for Flying Blue Elites, according to Expert Flier.

mikepa

Talk about kick-in-the-teeth. One day to go, EF says there are 8 seats available for Flying Blue Elite upgrade (PE->Business), still zero "O" upgrades for partners.

This is disappointing given this flight is a joint venture between AF & DL.

baccarat_king

I'll probably be flying this route in November (or December), I previously did back in March. Z-fares ex-Europe are prevalent. ex-AMS (AMS-CDG-MIA) can often be had below 2300€ roundtrip, as a "Z-fare," which is "basically" the same as the upgradeable fare classes. (IIRC, I "snagged" my March ticket for below 2000€)

But, the other "kick-in-teeth," is that it's an Air France 777 with 2-3-2 configuration in business class.... Thankfully, this will be changing for 2015.

vgb2001

this is often the case that O does not open at all. It's not only upgrade but also award business. What's more complicated is that sometimes EF shows O available but AF does not seem to make it available for DL. So even O>0 on EF does not necessarily mean PE-> J upgrade available for for DL ticket holders.

rylan

Another seamless example of the benefits of the JV....

vgb2001

Not all as bad as some would make you believe.

Bought a roundtrip SAN/CDG in W on DL (was $450 more than regular coach). Had used EF to find O on one way (created an alert for the other segment). I checked that the O1 I found on EF was bookable as low tier business award on delta.com
Bought my itinerary on delta.com with some domestic Y portions clearing immediately at booking.

Called Diamond line to upgrade. She found O when checking under the AF flight number (for some reason not under the DL code). Re-coded my flight with the AF flight number, which increased the price by $500. I said no way. She called the pricing department that manually forced the fare back to what it was supposed to be.

Pulled 15k RDM from my account, ask for immediate re-issue (was done on the spot).

Done. Now I'm in Affaires for the return. Still waiting for the (slim) possibility that O will open on my flight to CDG as well (very light load in all cabins on that flight).

Over the last, I would say, 4-5 years, I have done this a lot. Using either the old SWU or RDM. It did become harder these last 2 years to find O but it's not impossible.

vgb2001

MIA-CDG is getting the A380. More seats might mean more O available