Careful roknroll....you will get attacked on this board by pointing out the obvious.

On AA, it is called an instant upgrade fare and nobody over there b*&$hes about it at all. When Dl actually sells one of their sub-par "upgrade" class seats, it is an all-out assault on Medallions.

In my case the increase in price was miniscule, yet relative, like everything else in life. It was purchase a K fare or pony up a few more pennies for an A fare, which I believe is higher than a P? In my case there was plenty of buckets available, but I was shopping for a K fare or higher to increase my upgrade percentages as well, instead I chose the latter, which resulted in a confirmed ticket in First.

It appears, FCM worked on me in this case.

Believe H-UP/P and Q-UP/A. There's always exceptions to every rule, yet that's the majority of what I've seen.

I saw FCM at it's worst this week. On my outbound ATL-LAX flight last Sunday morning, I had to wait until I got to the gate to find out which of the 31 seats in FC on a 777 might be mine for an upgrade. Coming back yesterday afternoon, it was almost as bad with 19 seats in first on a 757 open.

Yes, I did get upgraded so I'm not really complaining per se. But it seems a little ludicrous that DL would hold back so many seats in FC. What did they think was going to happen last Sunday? Maybe Cee Lo Green would decide to take his entourage to LA on the spur of the moment?

BTW, my ticket purchased last week was close to $900 and only Q class versus an F fare of around $1100. But my corporate policy prohibits me from booking F unless that's the only seats available. So in theory I could have been sitting in coach on a fare that was only slightly cheaper than FC.

DL 16, LAX-ATL 5 July 30 open BE seats on 77L at check-in. no X inventory ever from a Expertflyer seat alert- Q fare $480 I fare $622 - fairly large upsell to BE

This almost sums up the problem I have with this thread. Let's say I was one who snagged one of those $50 T fares instead of paying the $650 fare for F. Later, along comes another pax who now finds the cheapest coach fare to be $600 for the same flt. They are offered a buy-up to F for another $50.

I paid $50 for the flt, they paid $600 for a similar seat in coach (actually they would have a worse seat). Who would you give the UG to if you were trying to run an airline --- a Diamond on the cheapest fare or the pax who was willing to pay $650 to get the seat in F?

The latter...

He was willing to pay +$50 for the seat in F. Suppose you were willing to pay +$100; then I'd find a way to sell it to you, and let him sit in coach for $600. That way, I'd get $50 more, and keep a good customer happier.

Kaaaaaaching!!!!!

DTW-DCA, July 5, 2012

http://i46.tinypic.com/110aw6f.png

The problem with this is that the Diamond is not willing to pay another $100. Haven't you seen all the DM threads here complaining about lack of UG's? To many (most?) here, they already established their loyalty by flying DL so much that it should be free. Personally, I wouldn't pay an extra $100 for a dom UG when my ticket was only $50 but if you said intl UG for only an extra $100...

If DL was truly in this only for the money, they would begin auctions for the F seats like Ethiad. I am sure that would go over real well here. :rolleyes:

Dl upselling
 

Sure would be nice if the supervisers of adults at DL would pay attention to us here. In an open, electronic world, I sure hope they know we are on to them.

Which one to pick, which one to pick?

The providers of a service, and the consumers of a service, almost always are at opposite corners of the sandbox. It appears that DL has ripped the guts out of the business/systems process, to have both FCM and Elite-UGs. When DL finds the balance of maximizing FCM, while pre-clearing the most UGs and leaving the fewest F seats empty, then the tone of this thread will change.

Yet the reality is... DL believes that there's unclaimed cash on the table, and they're going to try to claim it.

In some corporate examples, you'd be buying the M, and sitting in Y...

Here's what Delta is saying IMO: "Corporate contracts are more important in establishing loyalty than FF programs".

I'm pretty sure the Amex software we were required to use back in my working days was programmed only to show Y-cabin fares, so an employee would never see that P fare for the same price :mad: