Or unless you hold an enormous stake in DAL stock**...

**Which for the record, I personally hold none.

Some companies allow FC travel if the trip is long enough. My company allows FC if the travel exceeds 10 hours, which it always does for HSV-FAI. The 10 hours is beginning of first flight to end of last flight.

David

All OP has to do is buy a $835 ticket and he gets to sit in F. Why does is "suck" that a for-profit investor-owned company tries to sell its product before giving it away?

With the next round of capacity cuts and the increase in paid F, the free UG will be a much rarer bird by the end of the year.

Delta.com has coach up fares $69 for 2117 tomorrow from cheapest available coach one way.

and that's when i will become a United customer... not that the grass is greener, because I know it's not....all my co-workers are united customers... so i hear their sob stories all the time.

the near-100% upgrade thing has kept me a very loyal Delta customer for the last 6 years.

anyway.... i digress...


you know, you guys are some real fine netizens.

all i wanted to say is that it sucks that my 6 day out upgrade ... on a flight that i take REGULARLY... didn't happen...

i know it's not full of Diamonds... because there aren't but a handful of us in COS....

chances are i will BF upgrade... but that's not the point i was trying to make...

anyone stupid enough to pay $865 for a domestic F ticket... well, that just speaks for itself, doesn't it?

doug

You will pass all the UACO elites on FB who swear on the thread about devaluation of the Mileage Plus program that they are jumping ship for DL.

It's a revolving door, but that's what competition is all about.

The USA Pro Cycling tournament starts this weekend in Colorado Springs, so I bet you have a bunch of people traveling for it.

The lower coach fares are always sold out the day before the flight, so this differential is probably quite normal.

As of right now, there are still 3 seats in F and Y is sold out, suggesting that it may well be overbooked. Fairly typical of DL and others to hold F for the gate. Chance someone will purchase or an incoming intl premium pax entitled to domestic F misconnects and needs the seat.

[KVS Availability Tool 6.3.0.R2/Diamond - Sabre: Availability/GTC/US-LTR]
[CODE]ATL Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Intl GA US [KATL]
COS Colorado Springs Peterson CO US [KCOS]
FRI 19 Aug 2011

Carrier Flight From Depart To Arrive A/C St Availability
--------- ------ ---- -------- ---- -------- --- -- --------------------------------------------

DL 2117 ATL 19:25 COS 20:37 738 0 F3 P2 A1 V0 G0 Y0 B0 M0 H0 Q0 K0 L0 U0 T0 E0

It was stated that the cost for a one way y-up was over $800. This was wrong. Yesterday an H fare was around $380 and coach up was $450.

Here is the fare structure for the flight. Y-UP (now unavail) is $835. All that's left is F2. H fares at $409 (also unvail)

[KVS Availability Tool 6.3.0.R2/Diamond - Galileo: Fares/PSH/RU]

How can I monetize me some first class?
 

I've got a business trip from Miami to San Francisco coming up. Since I'm a lowly Silver, I'm not planning on an upgrade MIA-LAX or LAX-SFO either direction (I'm 3/4 for the year, my luck had to run out some time).

So with the evils of FCM upon us, I figure I'll try to use either miles or good ol' US Dollars to upgrade. When buying (with dollars) an upgrade on AA, you can only do it on the checkin robots at the airport, and not online.

Is it that way with Delta, or could I totally buy an upgrade from my computer at home the day before?

For cash, you are offered an upgrade at time of booking, and that's it. To upgrade after that, you pay change fee + fare difference (sometimes, not often, you can get them to waive the change fee if you are buying up).

For miles, you can upgrade at any time from a K fare or higher (provided upgrade inventory is available... like with complimentary Medallion upgrades, open FC seats may not mean mileage upgrades are available) for 12,500 miles each way.

P fares (FCM fares) seem to be running about $681 each way. This is a pretty substantial buy-up until you hit H fares. K fares are running about $404 each way ($277 buy-up). H fares are about $555 each way ($126 buy-up). M fares are $645 each way ($36 buy-up).

For a miles upgrade, you have to call in (there is talk of automating that but I haven't seen it yet).

When you call in to check availability, you can also get a quote on how much to upgrade from L/U/or T (if that is where you are). You can also ask to be waitlisted if there is no availability on that particular flight.

Is this another example of FCM
 

I have been watching the F avaibility mid week between SLC and PDX. I have noticed that the flights still have oveer 10 F available at the T-4 mark. Is this another example of First Class Monetization?