I predict it will clear at the GM window

I decided not to take any of the paid upgrade offers and see what happened.

DTW-EWR (fare class - U)
Offered $118 to upgrade whole trip to First. Did not take it.
Was upgraded at 48 hour window

EWR-DTW (fare class - U)
At check-in, offered $190 to upgrade for this leg. Did not take it.
Upgraded at gate (#2 on list out of a lot, plenty of F seats still available)

DTW-MSP (fare class - Q)
Offered $249 or something to upgrade whole trip. Did not take it.
Was #1 out of 30 with almost all seats available, 24 hours to go
Morning of flight, was #4 of about 64 I think with 0 seats available
No upgrade.

MSP-GEG (fare class - Q)
No offer of paid upgrade
Previous evening, was #2 out of 40 or so with something like 5 seats available.
Day of was about #6 of I think nearly 70 with 0 F seats available
Obviously no upgrade.

Apologies if the numbers are a bit off. Forgot to screenshot them and I've been swimming in other statistics for work.

The route is medallion heavy so maybe others on here have more accurate info. I remember in January I was in the teens on the upgrade list as a DL Amex Reserve card DM on this route.

Your smelly food is penalizing (or punishing if we want to attribute sadism to you) not DL but other passengers, especially those elites sitting around you in coach who also were unable to get upgrades.

This post missed a very good chance to supply some more useful data points by not relating the fare class bought for each of those domestic segments.

FCM at its finest! Booked RDU-DTW-IAH-ATL-RDU on a K fare. After I completed booking, I went in to select seats and was offered round trip upgrade for $61. This trip (weekly for me) is very medallion heavy--> Monday morning out and back on Thursday afternoon/evening...I typically average about 25-30/40-50 on the upgrade list as GM. It was obviously a no brainer to take it.

$61 roundtrip?? Wow, $15 a segment.
How far in advance did you book?

OP is GM and gets free bags, so $15 per segment is two drinks, assuming that there aren't meals on any of the flights.

It actually starts exactly one month from today. This is the second time that I have gotten this exact offer since starting this routing back in December.

There is one segment with a meal- DTW-IAH, but it is breakfast. It is only a bowl of cereal...

I congratulate MSP on 40,000 posts and FT legend status. I thought it would be weekend but it is tonight and this was her 40000th post. ^

I edited my post with the fare codes.

So, on Thursday morning I am flying from SLC to MSP. There are 17 open seats, out of 20 seats in FC. I am DM. No upgrade yet. Its only 7 hours before check in. I'll update to see if I get a seat in FC.

Flying DTW/LGA this weekend. Diamond on U fare going out Friday and T fare coming back Sunday. I always cleared in the past as a DM and PM (a lot of times at the window) and was over 75% as gold and cleared sometimes as an FO. 6 out of 16 seats open going out and 8 out of 16 returning. $520 is what is coming up to upgrade on Delta.com. I can't believe anyone would pay that kind of money for an hour flight to sit up front.

I'm hoping I can at least snag an aisle EC coming back if the upgrade doesn't clear. This use to be an easy upgrade an d now it's hard to even get an aisle EC seat on this route

Clear evidence that DL is doing the RIGHT thing by offering paid upgrades. Not all "elites" are DL's best customers. Why offer something free for which they are clearly unwilling to pay? Sell it to those paying the freight. Their $100 is worth more than a low-rev "elite" that just wants to sponge freebies.

bubba for the win.