That was my point. It was many years ago and has changed since then. The fixed cash + miles options based on fare class no longer exist. The KL offers now are all cash based. I'm assuming the pricing is dynamic now, but don't know the details as I don't really follow KL forum.

This seems rather odd. I booked a ticket for my husband yesterday, and Delta immediately upgraded him to first class. Yet when he checked in today, he got an online offer to upgrade for a little more than $200. But ….they’d already given him a seat, so I guess if he hadn’t noticed that and he selected that he wanted to upgrade, they’d still charge him the $200+? Seems kind of sleazy, asking if you want to pay for something they already gave you.

First time trying/hoping for an international upgrade to D1 offer.... I booked using miles MC, LAX to SYD. Flight is in 5 days. As of now the app is offering me Comfort for a miles or cash option but will it at some point offer me buy up options to D1?

Thanks :)

If you are talking 10/30 flight, it is down to J5, so I wouldn't get my hopes up. Even if there is one, the offer will likely not be very cheap. PS is down to P3 and also seems unlikely. C+ is down to W1, so you probably won't get comp C+ upgrade as well (or there will likely only be middle seats left). As with all these upgrade offers, the mileage amount is based on the cash offer with your miles valued at 1 cent per mile. You can generally get 1.2 - 1.3 cents per mile range with award bookings if you have an DL Amex card, so the mileage offers aren't really much of a deal. Domestic FCM offers tack on 7.5% US domestic excise tax on paid offers which is not applied on the miles offer. So miles are worth a bit more on domestic FCM upgrades (slightly less than 1.1 CPM).

I had an amusing FCM/Delta IT experience recently. Initially I had some laughably pricey offers for some segments of my itinerary, nothing offered for other segments. I called in to apply a RUC for one segment - as expected, agent said no confirmed space, would waitlist me. The (presumably very incorrect) way the agent chose to accomplish this waitlisting showed up for me as adding a redundant copy of the segment in question to my itinerary in OV (and unable to select seats for either that segment up front, or for my original segment in the back).

The interesting thing that happened was that suddenly FCM offers became available for all other segments of my itinerary, and at rock-bottom prices - the lowest prices I have ever seen or seen reported in this thread and therefore presumably the hard lower bound in the system. $500 from MC to D1 TATL, $50 MC to FC for a short domestic hop. The most interesting bit of pricing was $375 MC to PS - I remember getting TATL PS for $250 a few years ago, so either the lowest they are willing to accept has gone up, or this is because of the extra British taxes with LHR involved.

I bit, of course, and the app threw some errors but at the end of the day let me select seats up front. Day of travel I could not check in, of course, and when I called the agent grumbled about the incorrect inventory being used, but I explained that one segment was RUC and the rest were buy-ups, my ticket was reissued (turning my waitlist into an undeserved confirmed seat) and everything else went off without a hitch.

Very much a bank error in my favor of course but I thought I'd pass along the anecdote.

There are no additional APD taxes on flights to the UK. It's only assessed on flights from the UK (where they don't offer FCM upgrades). They seem to have raised PS fares in general since they were introduced and not too surprised that FCM offers are in the $375 range (on many routes, upfare differentials are often around $500 each way).

Thanks for the great info and looking up my flight.

So while the D1 offer may be very expensive will I at least see one or its possible all i see is the $319 or 31,900 miles offer for Comfort? Also is it the norm for the offer to be in the app below the actual trip but then not visible once you click on the trip in question? I almost wouldnt have seen it unless I moved down a bit and then I saw it below the trip/pic of Sydney. Its even below a credit card offer. However, upon clicking on the trip then you have no offers.

I was hoping for something reasonable to buy up to D1 with but sounds like it wont be happening. I lucked out last year with AA on a $363 ticket to HND with a $523 buy up to J. Sounds like a number like that wont be coming my way with Delta.

Do you have a roundtrip booking? C+ offer may be for return flight only, not outbound. Offer as low as $500 seems very unlikely for LAX-SYD route.

No return and no connection or anything. The only booking on the res is LAX-SYD. Is $319 a good deal for Comfort? I am probably going to buy a ticket on FJ in Y as its pretty cheap and then do a Bula Bid for an upgrade but I have no experience in that. My concern with that is just if I dont get the Bula Bid I will have no use for a FJ credit so I would end up I guess just flying the FJ flight in Y, but thats not ideal. I actually bought a ticket on FJ for the same night already, with an AA trip credit but no Bula Bid offers were allowed because it was not bought with FJ. So I am back to square one. Just trying to get down under on 10/30 in J but for the price of Y with some sort of a buy up/upgrade offer. I can fly to NAN, SYD or AKL, its completely irrelevent.

I wouldn't pay $319 for C+, especially if you already have a decent Main seat. Service is no different on long-haul international and the seats are the same with just somewhat more legroom and recline. You might notice the additional legroom depending on height, but the extra recline seems so modest you can't really tell. They used to advertise 50% more recline, but they stopped doing that so my guess is that it's not really consistent across all aircraft.

Cool ya I think I will just cancel the DL flight and go with FJ and hope my bid is accepted. I have to go find some FT forums on what to bid/get some analysis. Basically you give the amount and they go from highest to lowest to fill J seats until all are filled. Looks like 14 are still open. With EF not working its getting harder to figure this stuff out.

I was hoping to at least see an upgrade offer from DL to D1, just to get an idea what they want for it but still just the Comfort offer.

DTW-MIA $63.43 for an afternoon flight in August. I was pretty astonished to see that! (For the record it was a $300 ANC-DTW-MIA one way.) Perhaps I would have got the upgrade but seemed worth biting.

SFO-ATL $170.69 for a redeye in April. Seemed like quite a nice deal but I passed.

I have a flight coming up PHX-ANC-PHX in Dec, this is the seat map for the ANC-MSP, what would be the reason for the unavailable seats? This is for DL 377 on 12-5.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...3026875ad3.jpg

Because revenue management algorithm thinks it can sell better as new sale? I generally see little/no rhyme or reason to DL pricing.
I looked at a new purchase for your flight and there are 9 seats open, some at $999, and I tried a dummy purchase going as far as select sets and could select a seat.
Maybe try to change the flight and see what FC would cost on the new flight. But MSP-PHX might be linked and require you to move to FC on both legs.

Assume you're looking at an upgrade, DL does not always make a cash upgrade offer available. Standalone 377 is J9 C4 D0, and if you changed to F on ANC-MSP-PHX now it would book into full J. DL often does not offer "sticker" upgrades when inventory is tight.