jmertic

So here's the story...

Last night I was on the late LAX-ATL flight, where I just missed the upgrade by one person, but then went mechanical just prior to departure. After deplaning and heading to the new gate where they were pulling a new plane in for, I noticed the delay was going to lead to a misconnect in ATL.

Fortunately, I noticed the MSP flight was boarding, so I mentioned to the GA to check to see if they could get me on that flight. She was able to, so I raced back to that gate where they were getting ready to shut the door in a few minutes.

What was interesting was that the boarding pass they had waiting for me at the gate was for somewhere in Y, but when they scanned it at the boarding door I was immediately moved up to 1C.

So I'm a bit confused here...

- Seeing the UG list for my ATL flight was near 40, surely all F seats would have been occupied on UGs.
- And even if there was a no show, they would have filled the seat by then I bet.

Not that I'm complaining here, but just wondering what roll of luck ended me up in 1C...

durberville

Possible you were rebooked into Y fare?

Yaatri

I am confused about what you are asking.
You missed the upgrade for LAX-ATL flight, which had an upgrade waiting list upto 40.
The LAX-ATL flight went mechanincal.
You asked to be booked on LAX-MSP flight.
You made it to the MSP gate just in tike to get on board.
You were upgraded the LAX-MSP flight.

Whay are you surprised that you were upgraded? The upgrade waiting list for the LAX-ATL and LAX-MSP flights are independent of each other. Since you missed the LAX-ATL upgrade by one, you obviously have high status. The LAX-MSP flight probably had some one with an F boarding pass who was a no show and you happened to be at the right place at the right time, or the flight had one F open.

roknroll

If he barely made the MSP flight, they should have already upgraded everyone. So even if they booked him in full Y, there shouldn't have been seats left.

OP, how long before the MSP flight left did they rebook you? If you got rebooked before they started clearing upgrades then the computer would upgrade you before you reached the gate.

jrl767

LAX-ATL leaves 1145p, LAX-MSP leaves 1240a

I'd guess OP was rebooked into Y, so DM status immediately got the available V seat


last week I (a mere GM) was ticketed SAN-SLC-SFO-ATL-BWI, orig flight was late so imminent misconnect in SLC ... counter agent at SAN got me onto SAN-LAX-MSP-BWI and the long segments immediately cleared into F (which is the ** only ** tolerable way to deal with the redeye) ... looked at my account a couple days later and found those flights listed as "booked/flown Y/V"

she actually offered me SAN-LAX-JFK-BWI but I wasn't thinking fast enough to check the mobile app to see if there were BE seats available on LAX-JFK

Stripe

I had an odd situation a couple of weeks ago on a DTW-AUS flight. I had a companion on the same PNR so no upgrade before T-24 and by then all upgrade space was taken. After check-in we were numbers 3 and 4, with 4 F seats available, and that's where we stayed until about T-9. At that time the upgrade notice came through and when I checked the seat map there were 2 seats open in F. Of course, I could no longer see the upgrade list so I couldn't tell whether the two ahead of us had also cleared. F went out full.

It's possible there was a fortuitous set of cancellations, but it seemed strange. It got me thinking that companions may be handled a bit differently for the automated upgrades than they are at the airport.

MSPeconomist

A companion on the same PNR drags down your priority for an upgrade in advance, but on the gate list, everyone is ordered by his/her own status.

Perhaps the OP's upgrade could be explained by all other elites on the list having already boarded, although I believe LAX is a station where GAs tend to go on board and pull upgrades up from coach according to the original priority list. Maybe the GA saw the OP's status and decided to give the last upgrade to the OP rather than someone on board with obviously lower status.

dll

If it's true they were getting ready to shut the door they probably had a no-show and bumped you up from a Y rebook. Technically there might have been someone already boarded who was eligible for the upgrade but I've had mixed experience with the gate agents in LAX. Sometimes they'll come onboard and pull pax forward sometimes not. If it was close to departure they probably just took the path of least resistance. Right place, right time. Any chance your new LAX-ATL equipment was a downgauge of any kind (smaller aircraft than scheduled, or at least a different cabin config)? That would have resulted in likely denied boarding comp and they'll gladly put you through another hub to pick up a free seat. No matter, consider it payback for the irrops!

jmertic

To respond to everyone's queries ( and I apologize for the vagueness as I was 45 minutes into 2 Advil PMs during this whole episode )

- Yes, was rebooked in full Y ( and of course adjusted back when it came time for the miles to post :-( )
- Based on my TripIt notifications, I'm guessing I was rebooked over to the MSP flight at around 12:20a. I know for sure when I got off the original ATL flight the MSP boarding area was full and people were boarding, but when I came back to the gate afterwards it was empty and both GAs were in a rush to get me on board. The GA who boarded me was suprised when the ticket for 1C printed out at the gate, so sounds like the computer just automatically UGed me.
- One other thing I noticed after I boarded is they did pull someone up from Y for another empty F seat. So I at least I can feel slightly better of not pushing someone out of a seat that probably was theirs.

So it sounds like rebook into Y + no show(s) in F + show up at exactly the right time was the winner here. More interesting knowledge of the inner workings of UGs on DL :-).

Thanks everyone for your feedback!

Often1

At the last minute in IRROPS, a lot is left to the GA's discretion. It's possible that there was someone UG eligible sitting further back in Y and the GA simply made the decision not to disrupt departure and gave the seat to OP.

There are a million permutations here, but the one key thing is that OP's place on the LAX-ATL has no bearing on his place on LAX-MSP.

stils

It's not like you just went and sat in the seat. I certainly wouldn't have lost any sleep over it for even a second... especially after 2 Avil PMs.

roknroll

Sounds like everything worked out normal, and you just fell into the right situation. I think everyone had already cleared their upgrades before you got rebooked, and would have gone to the back. As a DM on full Y, you were probably #1 on the upgrade list (after they cleared upgrades). Then there were 2 no shows which opened up 2 seats in F. Since you said someone from Y got brought up into an empty F, had you arrived at the gate earlier you probably would have been sent back to your seat in Y, and then brought up to F when they had 2 F seats open up.

DLFan2

People being re-booked due to a misconnect used to always be booked into Y.

But I thought this had changed a year ago or so, so that misconnect rebookings kept the original fare class.

Stripe

Sometimes. On a misconnect in ATL two weeks ago I was rebooked into F and the miles posted that way with the 50% MQM bonus. As was noted above, the GAs have different ways they can get people onto flights. I think the more experienced ones sometimes just create a PNR entry, grab a seat from the F or Y bucket, and get you on the flight.

Same thing happened to me in BOS earlier this year. I had inquired about a VDB, decided not to take the offer, but another agent had already offloaded me. Original agent did a bunch of typing to get me back on the flight and I ended up with a full F ticket on my record.

In both cases I was originally ticketed on a T fare.

mnredfox

DL will and can often rebook into full Y or F which helps on UG's. However, DL definitely has fixed where you get posted the 50% MQM bonus.