MSP to AUS for $79. Great fare!

$159 MSP to SLC for a flight this fall. Seems like a good price for a 3 hour flight.

I have a DTW/ORD trip next month. Was $63 or 6K miles each way to upgrade to first and found out I can probably get out of the office now early on the day I'm leaving and bit and bought the outbound just for the sdc flexiblity (hopefully there is a seat on either the ORD or MDW earlier flight). two minutes later return almost tripled to $179 and F is still wide open. Weird it jumped that much

I find it interesting that DL is still protecting F on ATL-RDU. I just bought a last minute ticket and the FCM is $109. It tends to vary from $89 to 109. However, RDU-DCA is reliably $29 and RDU-NYC is $39.

It makes perfect sense. There is an exponentially greater likelihood that someone will buy a last minute very expensive first class ticket connecting through ATL to the west coast, Europe, South America, Africa, Hawaii, Asia, etc. The passengers flying RDU-DCA/NYC are largely not connecting elsewhere nor feel the need to purchase a first class ticket for a flight that short. Demand for first class in these short haul markets is low...and therefore the price drops. I am sure you witness this in the ease of upgrades on those flights as well. RDU-ATL flights at any decent hour are sure to be exponentially harder to get an upgrade on than RDU-DCA/NYC flights.

How would this impact ATL-RDU fares, though? What flights to any of the places you mention connect through RDU as opposed to being directly accessible from ATL?

Edit: unless the assumption here is that the flight is RDU-ATL, which is not the routing the original commenter mentioned.

Presumably those that fly ATL-RDU as part of an itinerary had at one point left RDU at an earlier time nor did they book a one-way ticket to RDU to move there forever and never leave. If anyone has a reason that ATL-RDU and RDU-ATL are somehow serving different markets...I am all ears.

I'm not asking the question to be a jerk, I'm just trying to understand what flights you had in mind when you suggested that Delta was pulling an FCM premium due to connecting traffic from ATL-RDU-Asia/Africa/Europe. Y0u clearly have a better understanding of DL's routes and revenue management than I do, so please enlighten.

I have a bunch of long flights in February and March out of mostly RDU and CLT where F is at least 50% sold 3-5 weeks in advance, and on many flights C+ is down to middles or maybe one aisle:

RDU-LAS - used an expiring RUC to upgrade. C+ was completely sold out 6 weeks out, my guess is to a tour group or a casino. I'm connecting to SAN, much more civilized than MSP and no 739.
SEA-RDU - managed to get a C+ aisle
CLT-SLC and back - C+ is pretty light, but F is 50% sold. The same days, RDU-SLC was a disaster in both F and C+, and if I'm going to sit in a Y- aisle I may as well fly Southwest through Denver.
SAN-STL - only one flight out of SAN after 1030am had a C+ aisle, and F was at least 40% sold to DTW, ATL, and MSP.

​​​​​​DL does not fly from RDU nonstop to Asia and Africa and I imaging not many are connecting on RDU-CDG. That is silly to bring up and nothing I ever said.

My comment was in regard to the ATL-RDU (and therefore RDU-ATL traffic) that will serve the exact same demand on the exact same connecting routes for people beginning or ending in RDU. Presumably, everyone will be not staying in RDU permanently on a one way ticket or leaving RDU permanently on a one way ticket. Therefore, the FCM pricing will be analogous in both directions, reguardless of the specific direction that the OP said.

I am sure the OP does expect his "normal" FCM offer of $29 on RDU-DCA to be normally $200 when flying from DCA to RDU. That does not make sense because those people are flying both directions. If anyone want to assist me in explaining this more clearly, please go ahead.

Someone buying J Asia-ATL-RDU wants F on the short leg.

BOS-LAS this coming Friday. Upgrade price was fluctuating, usually around 40-50k miles. When it dropped back down to 25,100, I couldn't resist.

It's interesting that if a TATL upgrade was offered to me for $250 (or mileage equivalent), I would jump all over it. Yet a flight of similar length to the west coast, I hemmed and hawed. But I finally decided I was worth it, dammit!

Added bonus - I should get ~1k of those miles back for the upgraded fare class.

Well, TATL would be D1 rather than FC and BOS-LHR is about 1000 miles further than BOS-LAS. Also, you earn no extra miles for upgrading will miles. Mileage earn is based solely on base fare and upgrades paid in cash, but not miles (there's no class of service bonus for being in FC). Perhaps you meant MQM's for which there is a 50% class of service bonus and netting an extra 1190 MQM for this flight.

While LHR might be further, it is almost the same flight time as LAS. And D1 might be true on Delta, but not on other airlines. However, I definitely did mix up MQM vs earning miles, which I do far too often. Ooops!

Well, seems Delta decided they weren't gonna get many F purchases on the Sunday return PHL-DTW. Only a single seat filled in the cabin. After weeks at $192 or something similar for the F upgrade, it dropped to the much more palatable $74 this morning. Jumped on that without a second thought.