The seat map is not a good indicator of how many seats are available or have been purchased. Many times tickets are purchased but seats not assigned.

If your original ticket is more expensive than the flight you want to get on, why not refund it and buy a ticket on the new flight?

Yep, looks like only full F can SDC, and ironically any DM/PM/GM/SM on a LUT can snap up those F seats

F9 P0 A0 G0 Y9 B9 M9 S9 H9 Q9 K9 L9 U9 T9 X4 V4 E0

And a crappy 752 too.

Well there is at least 9 (shows F9 on EF). And it's a P fare and only F currently available, so there would be a change fee and betting OP didn't pay $1600 for the P fare (cursory looks shows P fares for 14 days out at $590).

This is the return portion of the ticket so canceling doesn't make sense.

This is an IM, not an SDC issue. The use of fare basis as a delimiter for SDC is a means of protecting the flexible brand and of preventing "gaming".

The issue here is why P=0 on the day of if indeed BE itself has somewhere from 9-17 seats available. Maybe OP is asking the wrong question of DL. Might DL open a P seat for him?

I asked they said no.

I then said, can't someone with a brain look at this. I understand that the computer system rejected my request but can't a person with some common sense look at it and say it's unreasonable?
The agent's reply was "I ask you to just try and operate within our rules."

So absurd.

Would they give you a Y seat i.e. lower fare than P? Then you could get UG at the gate. Probably not, because different cabin, but worth asking.

DL did make some changes to the original SDC changes. If enough write in with the fare bucket concern (and people will use SDC for what it is intended) hopefully DL will tweak the fare bucket issue. I sure agree that SDC is usually "useless" as it stands presently.

I am going to write today! If all who have posted here and those who read this thread were to write today, it would be at least a start--I hope!!!

I am curious as to your fare basis for the P fare. I'm not trying to berate you for buying an upgradable coach fare. What I'm trying to propose is that if no one from DL is willing to play ball and let's say you have a YUP fare, see if they could rebook you in that full Y fare and then just have you immediately upgraded back into F? Obviously that won't work if you have one of the H/S/M/B...../WNUP, but it's worth a shot to ask?

Call back. Maybe a couple times. This is BS and sooner or later you might find the agent who can realize it.

btw, Be nice as possible and probably best refrain from "brain" comments. If you get nowhere with an agent simply say "thank you" hang up and call back.

Most airlines and most analysts long ago recognized that the priority is to prevent seats from going out empty. An outgoing empty seat represents a classic lost economic opportunity. That's a major, if not overwhelming input to the whole airline pricing algorithm. In my "usual" routings, the typical walk-up fare is ~ $200; the fact that some airlines (not always DL) try to charge an effective total of over $500 to make changes, or to buy a flexible fare, just shows how gullible some buyers can be. I may have mentioned this elsewhere, but UA seems to bring fare buckets into the equation as a "delimiter (more like a constraint) to SDC" without pi$$ing everyone off.


DL does not even have SDC anymore. It's SDR/FB/C.

Way to go DL... protect those revenue F seats from 'gamers' who purchased first class by zeroing out the other buckets.

Add to that the idiocy that you can't even standby for a seat, since all of those empties will go to medallion upgrades too.

Today is the first time I have tried since the change of policy. I have a FC seat at 4.....got to the airport at 1130

1215 has 20 seats.....but I would have to be standby and there are only middle seats left

130 has 15 seats.......I am on the standby list, I am sure I will get on, but who knows what kind of seat I get

In the old days I would have been confirmed and placed on the SB list for FC and probably would have made it on either of these flights....now I will get on but since I am on the SB list for Y I will be in Y....

Hoping for an aisle today!

This sucks

This kind of post is exactly why I am done with the elite system. The inability to actually take care of an elite seems crazy to me. Common sense wins more customers than a marketing poster on the jetway.

Please Delta, show us you have as much class as your commercials say you do. Any plane can get us from A to B. But if you want our loyalty, fix this... it really is just crazy....

Just for the record in this case "wfbf" isn't applicable...