Sounds like a plan. How often do you plan to check for a better upgrade offer?

You were comparing upgrade cost to original ticket cost. I consider original ticket cost irrelevant, and compare upgrade cost with upgrade value. The latter depends on length of flight, time of flight, type of plane, coach seat I have, etc. It does not depend on how much I paid for the coach seat.

Fair enough, but I still think by your metric the trip he's asking about fails to be worth it.

I finally find myself on the wrong end of FCM on Fridays SFO-ATL flight. I was offered an upgrade for $219 at checkin and thought to myself "nah, there are 5 open seats, I'll get upgraded". Clearly they sold all 5.

Luckily we had a killer tailwind and got home nearly an hour early so I can't really complain. Next time I'll drop the $219. :)

For what. a couple of drinks and a sub par meal. Know that there were 5 suckers who over paid

only about 100 times a day LOL:D

Holding steady at $255.00. not budging.

So you're like me and will never pay for an upgrade?

I would agree with this with one additional caveat.....the ability to do a SDC with much greater ease. Most, but not all flights, still have a seat upfront inside 24hours and that is not always the case with the lower class fares.

Next week I have another series of flights to the left coast. Ticket coast on one of them was just over $800. Upgrade offer was an additional $1868 for the entire trip. No thanks even with lousy seats in the back and all......and a very good chance I will want to change flights based on a fluid schedule at the moment

True, but that's still independent of the amount I paid for the coach ticket. (The actual fare class correlates with that amount, and affects how easy the SDC will be.)

Drinks are free and will flow like milk and honey after 1MARCH in C+ so no worries there.

Honestly the food on DL is very good and not sub-anything IMO but not worth more than maybe $10-20 bucks

I will never EVER pay for an upgrade on principle. Rather I would get a meal at the airport, take on board for all else to enjoy smells, and not give Delta more money! :p

Is that an inside info confirmation... or was your tongue firmly planted in your cheek?

My prediction remains... 2 drinks per flight beginning March 1, and one per flight sometime after April 1.

And back to the current EC rules (no free spirits) on 1-1-16.

Unless C+ becomes the new upgrade class. Then all bets are off.

Checked in last night for DL87 was 3 on the list with 5 open in F. Woke up, same two people ahead me and still 3 but 1 seat left. Wasn't offered a chance to buy up on the flight but it would appear some other people did and took it.

2 helpful data points
 

DM, V fare, LAX-MSP on #1212 on 2/19: offered $319 buy-up with 10 seats on at T-24: declined.

Colleague is GM, X fare, exact same flight etc. offered $249 for upgrade, will very likely accept bc he gets off on telling people he only flies FC (yes, one of those guys)

Prices of course are identical to these here: http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_...l-changes.html

Seems like something's wrong, as he was getting the price for L+ fares, despite being having X.