Sure, if you want to foot that much $$ on your credit card for a short amount of time. Also I think the airline and cc would notice pretty quickly if you started doing something like this regularly.

A guy did just that at AA a couple of years back and lost his miles and was thrown out of the FF program. It's not that hard for the airline to figure out.

It happened to some people that tried that on American a couple years ago. Didn't take them long to figure it out. I know they had their accounts terminated and lost all their miles. Can't remember if anything else happened to them or not.

I'm confused as to what this would achieve? You're going to tie up your credit for several days and put yourself at risk of having your account suspended and miles eliminated, all just so you can still miss out on a gate upgrade when 18 other medallions are ahead of you on the list?

If it's that important to you to sit up front, just click on the fare in the right column on DL.com and be done with it. :rolleyes:

LOVE IT! ^

Why not just pay for the service you so-clearly desire?

Because DL apparently won't let those of us who book tickets through a corporate TA - most likely the bulk of medallion members - participate in the FCM game. The cheapo upgrade offers are only appearing on tickets purchased through delta.com.

1. No idea if it's the bulk, but I'm sure there are many, many medallions who do not book through a corporate TA.

2. The upgrade restriction is not universal. I have some clients who require I book through their portal. Sometimes I get the UG offer, sometimes I don't. But also when I book through DL.com, sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't.

3. If I don't get the offer but want to buy-up based on the difference in fare available on the website, I have never had a problem just calling in and asking them to up-fare my ticket. The corp TA system will see/flag this, but anytime I do it on a work trip, I always confirm with whoever is paying for it that they are okay with me paying out of pocket to upgrade.

4. Regardless of all the above, it's still a horribly unwise move to book out the F cabin with no intent of actually using any of the tickets. AND, it still provides no guarantee that you'll get an UG.

It's completely anecdotal based on this and other threads, but those of us who book through BCDTravel, Amex, or the other big corporate travel TAs only get useless ads to buy up into C+, while our personally purchased tickets consistently have ads to buy up to F. This isn't corporate policy; its DL apparently not presenting FCM upgrades to flights booked through TAs. I never thought to just call and ask, but we're not getting the offers when we view our itineraries.

I completely agree that buying up an F cabin to game the upgrade situation is stupid.

Oh, I absolutely believe you that the corp TA can impact whether or not you get the UG offer. However, I think that the company setup of the online corporate TA can somehow influence this

I don't claim to understand any details, but I can share my experience booking through Amex Travel/Concur for two different clients. For one, I nearly always get the UG offers (comparable to when I book on DL.com directly). For the other client, I never see the UG offers.

Of course, DL.com does consistently offer me a buy-up to EC/C+ starting as low as $9, regardless of booking source, when I am already seated there for free as a PM. :rolleyes:

In the end, this is just the same as we saw at United. $25 bucks from a Priceline purchaser mean more to them than an upgrade to a loyal and frequent flyer. It's the biggest single reason I left United. I'm not completely surprised to find it here but at least I got some good time at DL.

They just take turns spearheading news ways to F (and no, that's not "First") us over, and of course they all copy them.

It's the reason for my sign-off line.

FTF

So full blown fraud is the logical answer? And people wonder why DL is trying to get rid of the entitled mentality.

I book through Egencia for work and am offered the ug about half the time. I am offered C+ nearly all of the time.

From my experience, it appears the "hub captives" benefit from the FCM as the pricing seems to be by segment. My N/S flights seem cheaper to ug than my connections. Granted, this is just based on limited data, but it certainly has been the case for me..

Back down to $201. Curious to see if it gets lower the closer I get to departure.

Does DL also sell single-leg upgrades at check-in?

Yes. You can also upgrade individual segments* in advance by calling in.

*Assuming a nonstop. For connecting itineraries, you're basically up-faring so would need to upgrade that particular fare component. E.g., MDW-ATL-MCO, if ticketed on a CHI-ORL fare, you'd need to upgrade both legs at once).