is FCM taking a summer vacation?
 

looking at some summer travel, and i'm not getting FCM offers. a look at the expertflyer fare grid does not show the usual dual listings for fares that get FCM'd.

example:

BOS-ATL, June 1:
fare basis QA07A0NJ appears twice in the expertflyer listing, once at $327, and once at $406. delta.com offers first class at that $406 fare.

BOS-ATL, June 2:
fare basis QA07A0NJ appears once in the expertflyer listing, at $327. delta.com offers first class at a $513 fare explicitly published as an M-UP (MA00UPNJ).

i also note that June 2 is 60 days from today, which makes me wonder if that's just a threshold. but, i recall being offered FCM farther in advance that that before.

June isn't 60 days from today....May is 60 days from today so what you are looking at is 90 days from today. I doubt that so-called FCM is taking a break for the summer. However, fares in the summer are typically higher and inventory tighter since it is the busy travel season.

duhhhh, right, my bad -- actually, that makes june 2 91 days from today -- fares offered up to 90 days out. i'm fairly sure i got an offer more than 90 days out when i started looking at thanksgiving last year, but i'm not as sure of that as i am of 60. (and i should have taken the FCM!)

in my testing, i took inventory out of the mix -- the FCM offers aren't there for june 2 or beyond.. i guess i'll find out tomorrow if it moves to june 3. :-)

tight summer inventory does make FCM start to look pretty good -- if the lowest FCM fare is Q, and the lowest economy bucket available is Q, then FCM'ing into confirmed F and 1.5x MQM starts to look like a nice option.

EDIT: checked back a couple of days later, and it appears the FCM fares do show up 90 days in advance -- june 3 now has FCM fares on the routes i'm watching.

+1 - This is the whole point. With improved sales of F and capacity cuts, the goal is to sell FC well before freebie UG's even become an issue. Don't forget that the vast majority of pax don't look at F fares because they think they are expensive. So, they book the best coach fare they can, grumble about high it is and sit in Y when they could have sat in F.

Is this Monetization?
 

I have a full Y fare. $1400 ticket for a few domestic hops. One of the legs I did not get upgraded on and it is less than 24 hours now. Delta is still selling P fares and still shows FC seats on said flight available for purchase and assignment. It seems to me that when I get Y fares, the upgrade hits almost right away.

Thoughts?

I thought y fare upgrades were supposed to be at time of purchase

It seemed to be that way before P fares..

I think v inventory still has to be available, if I'm not mistaken.

Yes, this is monetization.

Y fares are upgradable at time of purchase only if there is V inventory available.

I would call DL and ask the fare difference between your Y fare and the P fare on that segment. Would not surprise me if it were *lower*.

I was wondering about that, is it always it does there have to be v inventory. I guess you're right

Yes, upgrades from full Y fares pull from the V bucket. So if V = 0, no upgrade on full Y fares for you. Though you do get the added pleasure of being #1 of 638 at the gate and laughing at those in lesser tiers and on lower fares...

As you join them in coach.....:D

Because the guy with the (properly coded) SWU has jumped ahead of you to #1 and is enjoying his PDB while you try to jam your bag in the overhead in coach between the skateboard and the mandolin.

And so does the FO on a T fare who was rebooked in Y as a result of IROPS.

But the odds of that happening (properly coded SWU) are less than an FO getting upgraded on SFO-ATL on thurs or fri evening.