No one has said that DL won't do OPUPs on transcons.

Anyone received a response from Delta to correspondence on this issue --

I have not received any response to my letter (below)

"Following up on our conversation earlier this morning regarding Delta’s new upgrade certificate policy - http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_...tificates.html

The advantage of flying Delta for my family and I dare say the rest of the expat community here is (or should I say was) the availability of SWU which we could use to upgrade our families on home leave trips, while I might make diamond, my family (children and partner) do not make it beyond Platinum. Up until now we were getting 4 SWU each per year and a bonus 6 if and when Diamond was reached. We expats have no need for regional upgrade certificates – the only ones we need are international – removing all useable upgrade certificates from Platinum level will make delta unfeasible for what I can only assume is a significant market for Delta, as we fly delta all year just for this perk to upgrade our families – despite significantly cheaper options.

Now – we ONLY get 4 “global” certificates on reaching Diamond…. I am aware that we can still upgrade with miles – however these do not clear “to the gate” which is where at least one of us usually clears.

My suggestion would be to give us the choice of old SWU ( you have to pay more (YBM fares) but you get more of them) OR the new structure upgrade certificates ( you can pay a lesser fare – but get less certificates) OR let mileage upgrades clear at the gate. Either of these options would go a long way to rectifying.

My hope is that you can get this to the attention of someone at sky miles/ Delta – I am hoping that this is an oversight – I am sure there was no intention of abandoning the sizable expat community that uses Delta to get them and their families home."

My guess, they will. Since they are treating the JFK tcons like TATL/TPAC�s, there will be op-ups when the need arises.

Why any company would pay for YBM fares is beyond me. DL was basically scamming the system by creating an incentive for employees to book over-priced fares in order to use their SWUs. This wasted company money and created a system where there were no international UG benefits for people working for companies with rationale travel policies or those who were weren't profligate or irresponsible with their employer's money.

Sorry you have to sit in the back of the bus now, but this is a much better system.

How you can say this as a GM is beyond me. Regardless, some people will be voting with their wallets, as they should.

I imagine he is saying it is a much better system for the companies that fund this travel.

Having witnessed many travel scams over the years, I can see his point.

But by and large, business travel will be a declining business. The younger generation is accustomed to doing business virtually, and once that generation starts to approve travel budgets things may start to change.

David

That's true already to a large extent. I started working in NYC in 1990 and was expected to travel to Washington, DC, for industry meetings once or twice a month. By the time I retired in 2012, those meetings were almost entirely replaced by (far more frequent) conference calls. I didn't have to spend so much time traveling -- the travel time often took as long as the meeting itself -- and my employer saved a lot of money (not just on my travel, but on everybody's travel).

Bruce

Another alternative is to reallocate employee resources to reduce travel costs. So if someone in NYC goes to SFO often we instead find someone qualified willing to work out of SFO and hire them and, hopefully for the other person, find something else for them. We just did that in fact.

I think you're absolutely correct that DM and PM will be sitting in poor seats on last minute tickets, esp if there are fewer EC seats to go around due to the lack of Transcon UGs. This is assuming that there will be more restricted EC inventory.

Anecdotal evidence (the best kind, right?) suggests this will be the case. The changes affect everyone, not just PMs.

True, though dm's are more likely to get op-ups when Y is oversold (I suspect) and gm's were not upgraded often on this route anyways (I've been upgraded 3 times on this route in the past 3 years), so in a sense, pm's stand to loose the most on the transcons.

Agreed... and at that point if you're going to be stuck in a crap seat with no chance of upgrade, you might as well shop for the cheapest carrier.

I don't know you evidence for how often this is the case, but if you labor through this entire through you will see many other scenarios that do not fit the bleak picture you paint.

I am among those who lose big in the new system but I am not going to repeat what I have said more than once in this thread.

Don't forget about Shena potentially UGing NRSA before DMs.

That's EXACTLY the point! NRSA's will ALWAYS get UG'ed before DMs, and it won't be considered Shena.

Actually, I believe, that, techanically, NRSAs don't get upgraded. If Y is overbooked and there are 4 open J seats with 2 NRSAs on the plane, 2 will simply be assigned to NRSAs, and the other 2 to whoever, same as if there are 4 open J seats and Y is NOT overbooked, ALL 4 J seats will go to NRSAs.

Is it bad that part of me is looking forward to some DM screaming for Delta to thin the herd of so-called low-rev medallions because they can't get aisle EC seats on transcons?