Richinga

I'm PM and flying ATL-MUC at the end of the month and returning FRA-ATL the 1st week in Oct. I'm on M fare using skypesos and confirmed BE on the outbound leg, but I'm waitlisted on the return from Frankfurt. There are currently over 20 empty seats in BE.

What are my chances of getting confirmed Z upgrade in the next few weeks? Anyone know how Delta Revenue Control decides how and when to let seats go to upgrade passengers? Delta won't tell me where I am on the upgrade list....I assume PAX using SWU and DM will clear before me.

craig44485

Hello. First off, next time if you can help it, don't book the expensive M fare unless there is Z availability. This enures your not wasting your hard earned money. Second, set an alert on Expertflyer.com for your particular flight so it will notify you when/if Z becomes available, then you can call DL immediately and have them book you in BE. Chances are fairly good there will be some Z available between then and now, so hurry up and get that alert set on Expertflyer!

Jmr007

I found seats taken in y the best indicator to being upgraded,
In April all 3 of us (diamond, gold , silver) were upgraded at the gate on the same route

Jmr007

I found seats taken in ec the best indicator to being upgraded,
In April all 3 of us (diamond, gold , silver) were upgraded at the gate on the same route! On a low tier miles ticket. Ec showed almost sold out the day before.

javabytes

Only flown FRA-ATL once. There were about 15 op-ups, including me on a LUT fare.

HongKonger

OP isn't talking about op-ups he's talking about clearing a mileage upgrade.

OP, Expert Flyer will alert you when Z opens up. It'll probably happen at some point. Make sure you waste no time in calling/tweeting to get your upgrade processed when it does open up. Mileage upgrade requests do NOT go onto the wait list for gate upgrades like SWU requests do, so it is important you upgrade before the day of the flight.

Richinga

Thanks for the advice HongKonger. I have the alert set up at Expert Flyer, but what do I do when/if I get notified that a Z seat opens up? Will Delta automatically process my PMU request or do I need to contact them to grab the seat?

monsrt

Well I just did this route two weeks ago and the upgrade went to the non revs. Its kinda a slap in the face looking at all those boarding passes saying NSRA or something like that.

I know, if I wanted to sit up front I would buy a ticket...but hey, I've already gone over 200K so a little perk ahead of non revs would go a long way from having me flythe next 100K on say...United or AA. I'm just saying

Xeno

Don't ever wait on DL's automated IT, but when notified call or tweet DL immediately.

EF just got me the seat I wanted for today's ATH-JFK but I called DL to sort things out.

MSPeconomist

This is not what is supposed to happen if you were using a SWU rather than miles to upgrade and are properly on the airport upgrade list before the flight. You should have asked the GA what was happening and if the upgrade was not given, even if it would mean pulling a nonrev off the flight, get the name and make a HUGE complaint afterward.

Any remaining BE seats are to be given as upgrades to elites on the SWU upgrade list at the gate on the day of the flight before going to nonrevs per DL policy now about SWUs. On the day of departure, implicitly all remaining BE seats become G inventory as at that point
having upgrade inventory available doesn't matter, just having an empty BE seat. However, miles upgrades are not required to be given at the gate--time and some GAs don't know how to pull miles, but some apparently will if there are seats.

Richinga

Well, the good news is I did get lucky and got a Z upgrade on the FRA-ATL leg.

What's surprising is that I did not receive an email alert from expert flyer that Delta released a Z seat. I happened to notice the open Z seat when I searched expert flyer this evening. I had an alert set up in EF to automatically send me an email when at least one Z ticket becomes available......But no email. I double checked and it appears the alert was set correctly.

I called Delta and had them grab the seat for me, so it's a happy ending, but I'm curious as to what happened to EF's email alert. Any ideas?

Xeno

I have done manual checks on EF in part to cover any mistakes I made setting up an alert, but at least 2 weeks ago the seat alert came through at the last minute so I did get my favorite for ATH-JFK.

ExpertFlyer Voice

Glad to hear you got the upgrade. Flight Alerts check several times a day, so it is possible that the inventory opened up between checks and you found it before the alert did and took the inventory. If you had not done so, you would have been notified about the inventory.