booked a one way award JFK-SKB (taking advantage of the awesome promotion at the Park Hyatt!) for 18,000 miles. FCM offer is $299. C+ is pretty wide open and there are still 12 FC seats less than a month out. I think I have a good shot of the comp UPG, so I'm passing.

Flew PVG-DTW yesterday. When I booked, it was $313 to upgrade to PS. Asked at the gate thinking something might have changed, it did. Was quoted $1070 to upgrade to PS one way. Ehh no...

The Delta computer program will no doubt recognize this history as well and open up the buy-up at the 24 hr mark for $99. Meanwhile you will have been already upgraded to C+ and awaiting another freebie to F which should go from 10-12-available to 1 available 2 hrs before the flight

good luck scoping out the Delta system

I've been watching the holiday flights (Xmas, North East to Florida ) for buy-ups or even outright paid fare upgrades. They seem to have blocked most buy-ups to F as well as displaying no F seats available on their MD flights. If I do a dummy booking the F seats show all are available but the fare jumps to $1600-$1900 RT which of course is so unreasonable for the routing that nobody is buying it.

I am guessing that maybe they have not yet figured out what aircraft and routings will be available months from now and prefer not to encourage bookings in F until it gets sorted.

Any other ideas?

If Delta would serve good, real champagne in domestic first-class and bring back better catering then maybe, just maybe I would consider some of these first-class buy-ups. But this is insane, especially if you have an aisle seat in comfort plus or an exit row, non-middle seat.

If you can reposition, check out Vancouver. Of late, I've been positioning myself to Toronto as the price for Delta first-class out of YYZ is often the same price as economy or comfort-plus out of Detroit. I've seen Montreal and Vancouver have similar low airfares.

Delta offered me a buy-up into first-class at $534.60 for DTW–LAX and $984.58 for LAX–DTW. The ticket was $1,000 and change.

JFK-LAS Delta ONE Buy Up Offer
 

I purchased a ticket yesterday for a flight within 10 days JFK-LAS (757 D1 Plane) as a dummy to see what the buy up offer would be. Fare was $202 in Coach. D1 was $802. Buy up offer after check out and all of today has been at $981. Go figure.

Cancelled the ticket, as I will use points to actually buy a real ticket. (points offer is 12K which is decent in coach)

My question is being, has anyone gotten a reasonable offer on this segment? or similar segment with D1? Should I see it go down as we get closer? (were within 9 days) 11 open seats currently. I don't mind paying $3-350 but anything above that no desire. Otherwise I think I may just book EWR-LAS in J on United with AMEX Plat rebate but I really wanted to try D1. :D

LGA-MIA recently was $299 one way buy up to FC (same cost as my post about JFK-SKB). I was on an award ticket but still got upgraded to FC at the GM window :)

Interesting data point, I have an upcoming trip with one passenger on a cash ticket and another on an award ticket, the FCM offer is exactly the same for each on both the outbound and return.

The FCM buy-up offers seem invariant of the fare class bought. Interesting that it's the same for both passengers though (as the passenger seems to be the most common 'variable' - generally medallions are "rewarded" with more expensive buy-up offers for example).

I am currently being offered C+ to FC on a TPA-ATL flight for the bargain price of $292.35. FC seats on that same flight right now are $261.20. It's actually insulting.