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The Official - GLOBAL UPGRADE CERT success thread - Yay! I got it!

Old Sep 14, 2016, 7:42 am
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: flyerCO
Click below to display this full wiki and read if you have general questions about using GUCs -- they may be answered here!

Using Delta Global Upgrades


DL page: https://www.delta.com/us/en/skymiles/medallion-program/medallion-upgrades
(click or scroll to "Upgrade Certificates Overview" and expand the "Show Additional Details & Terms" sections to see T&C, especially for the specific conditions governing use on partner airlines)

"Global Upgrade Certificates, available exclusively for Diamond Medallion Members, offer upgrades on both international and domestic flights with Delta, and select flights with KLM, Air France, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Australia, Korean Air and Aeromexico."

Delta offers Diamond Medallion members the benefit of up to 4 Global Upgrade Certificates (GUCs) per year, which each allow a one-way upgrade to business class/Delta One for one person on any route in the Delta network, as well as a limited number of partner flights under specific restricted circumstances described below. 4 GUCs is enough to upgrade the Diamond Medallion member on 2 round trips or 4 one-way trips, or the Diamond Medallion member plus one companion on 1 round trip or 2 one-way trips.

Choosing upgrades as a choice benefit
  • Upgrades are valid one year from the date of issue, usually the day of or day after they are selected in Choice Benefits -- so best to wait as long as possible to select them unless you have a specific use planned for them
  • All Diamond Medallions also receive a Platinum Medallion choice benefit, even if just renewing existing Diamond status in a year, so DMs could for example select 4 RUCs as their Platinum choice benefit and 4 GUCs as one of their Diamond choice benefit, or 4 RUCs as their Platinum choice benefit and 8 more RUCs as one of their Diamond choice benefits
  • However, it is not possible to select 8 RUCs as one Diamond choice benefit and 4 GUCs as another, nor select 4 GUCs more than once for a single year's Diamond choice benefits -- so the most GUCs anyone can currently earn in a single year is 4
  • You may select your DM benefits at different times, so it is best to select fixed-expiration-date benefits (like gifting status or SkyClub memberships) as soon as possible, but wait until you have a specific use in mind to select upgrades, so that the expiration date is as far into the future as possible. This is especially important if you are waitlisting upgrades for a particular trip, since if the waitlist doesn't clear, a later expiration date will maximize the amount of time you have to try again to use them on a different trip.
  • For status earned based on flying in 2017, upgrades can be selected until the last day that status is valid, January 31, 2019, so they could possibly expire as late as January ~30, 2020 if they are selected as late as possible.
  • Upgrades can be used after you are no longer a Diamond Medallion as long as the upgrades are still valid, though non-DM-line phone agents will be less familiar with them, so they may be harder to use or run a higher risk of being processed incorrectly, so it may be worth booking your GUC flights before your DM status expires if possible.
  • All flights to be upgraded must be flown, not just requested, by the expiration date of the upgrade certificates, though there have been some examples of short extensions offered by phone agents (for example, to the end of the month of the expiration date) as long as the upgrade is able to be confirmed before the certificates expire. In this case it is important to push the agent to make sure the ticket is reissued right away, since it will not be possible to reissue the ticket after the GUC expires. You can tell if the ticket has been reissued because the ticket number on the booking will change from what it was when you originally booked in coach, and the GUC will be marked as "closed" in your wallet on Delta.com.

Finding upgrade space
  • Delta phone agents and the @Delta Twitter account can check for available upgrade space
  • There is no general way to check for available upgrade space online
  • However there is one exception where some flights appear to be able to be checked online: for Delta flights carrying a KLM code -- for example, most flights between the US and Europe -- ExpertFlyer.com (paid membership required) shows KLM upgrade space, and will show upgrade space for those KL-coded, DL-operated flights, which based on anecdotal evidence seems to often (but not always) correspond to upgrade space made available by Delta. This can be a way to check many dates and flights easily, but confirm with Delta that the upgrade space does in fact exist before making firm plans.
  • Upgrade space is not necessarily correlated with award space
  • If upgrade space is not available on your desired flight, you can waitlist, and it is possible the upgrade may clear before departure. If not your name should appear on the upgrade list at the gate. See next section for details.
  • Upgrade space is rarely seen in advance on busy, high-upgrade-demand routes like ATL-JNB and LAX-SYD.

Requesting an upgrade
  • You must call or Tweet at Delta to request an upgrade, they cannot be requested on the website
  • If upgrade space is available, the agent will process the upgrade immediately and you will be able to select business class seats
  • If the upgrade is confirmed in advance, your ticket will be reissued in business class at some point before the flight and you will receive a new itinerary email when this happens; occasionally the ticket does not get reissued and you will not be able to check in, but a quick call to Delta usually fixes this easily
  • Occasionally an email is sent to alert you if a waitlisted upgrade has cleared, but often the best indication is if a segment of your itinerary disappears entirely from Delta.com, which usually means the upgrade has cleared on that segment. Call Delta to have them process it so that it reappears in your itinerary, and you will be able to select business class seats.
  • There have been reports of upgrades coded incorrectly by agents -- unfortunately there is no way to know for sure if your upgrade is coded correctly, and requested upgrades seem to show up a few different ways on Delta.com, sometimes with an "upgrade requested" designation on the flight, and/or with a "phantom" duplicate flight in the seat maps which will not let you select seats
  • If an upgrade has not cleared by check-in time and you do not appear on the upgrade list on the Delta app or Delta.com, call to have an agent correct the upgrade
  • In certain airports where other airlines handle Delta's flights (particularly AMS), it is not officially possible to clear at the gate; KLM does process upgrades at the gate in AMS for certificates waitlisted 24 hours in advance of departure, but this is not an officially guaranteed benefit. To be safe make sure you have your GUC certificate numbers and redemption codes written down in case the KLM agents need this information.
  • If you are connecting, for example flying MCO-ATL-LHR, and upgrade space is not available on ATL-LHR, best practice is to waitlist on the ATL-LHR leg only, so as not to waste a global upgrade on the short MCO-ATL flight, and then add the upgrade request to MCO-ATL when/if ATL-LHR clears; most agents will understand this approach and may even proactively suggest it
  • If you have selected your choice benefits very recently (within the last 24-48 hours), the phone agent may not yet be able to see your upgrade codes, but you can read the codes to the agent from the My Wallet page on Delta.com
  • The priority order of GUCs, RUCs, mileage upgrades, and complimentary upgrades is not 100% clear, but it is known that GUCs and RUCs have higher priority than complimentary upgrades, and that GUCs and RUCs appear to have equal priority. It is listed on Delta.com that GUCs and RUCs clear first by medallion level and then by time of request, which is different from the upgrade priority used for complimentary upgrades (which is also listed on the website)

Other upgrade rules
  • Upgrades are valid on Delta flights on all economy fares except Basic Economy (E)
  • It is possible to request upgrades in one direction of a roundtrip only, for example if you had 4 US-Europe trips planned and only 4 GUCs, you might decide to upgrade the eastbound flights only as they are overnight flights and remain in economy for the westbound flights.
  • On flights operated with a Premium Select cabin, Delta has indicated that it will still be possible to use a GUC to upgrade directly from economy to Premium Select or to Delta One using the same number of GUCs. However, if an upgrade is cleared from economy to Premium Select, the GUC will be considered used, and another GUC would be required to upgrade again to Delta One. The best strategy is probably to waitlist only for Delta One upgrades, and perhaps if the GUC is close to expiring or you don't expect to have another use for it, to add a request for a Premium Select upgrade close to departure if the Delta One upgrade hasn't yet cleared and/or the Delta One seat map looks very full.
  • Upgrades may be used for the SkyMiles member and up to one companion; The companion need not be in the same PNR, but must be traveling on the exact same flight as the GUC holder.
  • Unlike AA and UA upgrades, DL upgrades cannot be gifted to someone whom the SkyMiles member is not traveling with
  • As of January 22, 2018, it is now officially possible to use a certificate for a companion but not for yourself, as long as you are traveling on the same flight as the companion -- for example if you are eligible to buy a business class ticket for business travel and want to bring your spouse by buying an economy ticket and upgrading them. It is not clear if you could upgrade your companion but not yourself. In the past the question has been raised of waiting for a complimentary medallion upgrade for the main member and then using a certificate for the companion, but now that companions for complimentary medallion upgrades are processed at the same priority as the main member, this is no longer a likely concern.

Using upgrades on KLM

Dedicated thread: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...grade-klm.html
  • "For travel on KLM-operated, Delta-marketed flights this certificate may be used to upgrade on published fares booked in Y, B, M, H, Q, K, L, U, T, X or V class and all fare classes upgrade into Z class. For travel on KLM-operated flights marketed by KLM, fares booked in Y, B, M, K, H, L, Q, T, N, R, or V class are eligible to upgrade into Z class. For travel on KLM-operated flights marketed by AF, this certificate may be used to upgrade on published fares booked in Y, B, M, K, H, L, Q, T, N, R, or V class into Z class. "
  • NOTE: some of the combinations above are only (relatively) recently eligible for GUCs. Phone agents may not be familiar with the new rules, and may need to be gently pointed in the direction of the DL T&C on their own website.
  • In the course of processing the upgrade of a Delta-marketed, KLM-operated flight, Delta reissues the KLM flights on KLM flight numbers when they issue the upgrade, but the flights must be bought on DL flight numbers initially (unless buying expensive Y, B, or M fares with KLM)
  • It is not possible to waitlist for upgrade on KLM flights, nor to go to the airport upgrade list, so space must be available in advance in order for the upgrade to clear. Many agents will offer to put you on the waitlist, but putting you on the upgrade waitlist for a KLM flight will simply never clear so you're better off monitoring it yourself (see next bullets).
  • KLM upgrade space can be checked on ExpertFlyer.com (requires a paid membership). ExpertFlyer also allows users to set alerts for particular fare classes becoming available, which could be useful in lieu of being able to waitlist -- you can set an ExpertFlyer alert for "Z" availability and then call Delta to grab the upgrade if you receive an ExpertFlyer alert that it becomes available.
  • KLM upgrade space on a single segment is different if you search that segment alone vs. if you search a connecting itinerary involving that segment. So if you are looking for KLM upgrades ORD-AMS-JNB, you need to search ORD-JNB in ExpertFlyer to see the true availability; even if there is space on ORD-AMS and AMS-JNB, if it Z space doesn't show up for ORD-JNB you won't be able to upgrade. Unfortunately this means that ExpertFlyer availability alerts, which can only be set on a segment-by-segment basis, are not useful for monitoring KLM upgrade availability on connecting flights.
  • In some cases, adding a DL domestic connecting flight can change KLM upgrade availability. For example ATL-AMS on KLM may show availability but MCO-ATL-AMS may not. Example. Unfortunately some more complex routings, such as forcing an extra connection to find KLM upgrade space (flying JFK-ORD-AMS-CPT instead of JFK-AMS-CPT), do not show up on ExpertFlyer so you are at the mercy of hopefully finding Delta agents who know what they're doing.
  • Bookings with KLM ticket numbers (starting in 074) can be upgraded using the same rules as bookings with Delta ticket numbers (starting in 006). Delta-operated, KLM-coded flights can be upgraded under the same rules as any other KLM-coded flight. Delta-coded, Delta-operated flights booked on a KLM ticket number can be upgraded the same as if they were booked on a Delta ticket number, so in any fare class other than E.
  • There have been numerous challenges with KLM upgrades, so be careful, be persistent, and make sure you request the upgrade within the no-risk cancellation window of the ticket so you can cancel if it doesn't work as expected.
  • More KLM upgrade reading: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Using upgrades on Virgin Atlantic

3-year-old thread: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta-air-lines-skymiles/1779666-guc-now-able-used-virgin-atlantic-vs.html
related, upgrading VS with SkyMiles (also requires G class, so the info may be useful too?): https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta-air-lines-skymiles/1857464-definitive-thread-use-sky-miles-upgrade-vs.html
  • "Valid on Delta-marketed (DL flight number), Virgin Atlantic-operated flights for use globally on published fares booked in W, Y, B, M, H, Q, K, L, U, T, X or V class to G class (Upper Class). " Upgrading on Virgin-marketed (VS flight number) flights using GUCs is not possible.
  • Global Upgrades on Virgin Atlantic flights must be confirmed 24 hours prior to departure.
  • Global Upgrade Certificates may not be used to waitlist for a Virgin Atlantic-operated flight. Many agents will offer to put you on the waitlist, but putting you on the upgrade waitlist for a Virgin Atlantic flight will simply never clear so you're better off monitoring it yourself (see next bullets).
  • DL flight numbers are not available for most Virgin Atlantic flights to regions other than the US (for example LHR-JNB), so it is not possible to use GUCs on those flights.
  • Virgin Atlantic upgrade space appears to use the same availability as awards, so if a business class award is available for a Virgin Atlantic flight on Delta.com, it should be available for an upgrade (as long as that flight is booked on a DL flight number). If an award is not available, an upgrade is probably not available -- but if you notice any exceptions to this rule please share in the thread. You can also monitor G space using ExpertFlyer (see KLM section above).
  • Because G is the same code as Virgin Atlantic uses for award tickets, after you fly the tickets will register with Delta as having been awards and will not earn any miles. Watch your mileage earning carefully and you will likely have to call Delta and explain that it wasn't an award ticket but an upgrade from a paid coach ticket, and they will correct the mileage earning to be equivalent to what you would have earned on your original coach ticket.

Using upgrades on Virgin Australia

Valid on Delta-marketed, Virgin Australia-operated flights on published fares booked in Y, B, M, H, Q, K, L, U class to Virgin Australias Business Class.

Using upgrades on Air France

Dedicated thread: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...20-onward.html

"For travel on Air France-operated flights marketed by Air France and booked in Y, B, M, K, H, L, Q, T, N, R, or V class, customers can upgrade into A class (Premium Economy) or Z class (Business Class). For Air France-operated flights marketed by KLM, customers with a published fare booked in Y, B, M, K, H, L, Q, T, N, R, or V class can upgrade into Z class (Business Class). For Air France-operated flights marketed by Delta, customers with a published fare booked in Y, B, M, H, Q, K, L, U, T, X or V class can upgrade into A class (Premium Economy) or Z class (Business Class). In addition, customers traveling on an Air France-marketed and operated flight and booked in W, S or A class as well as customers traveling on an Air France-operated, Delta-marketed flight and booked in P, A, or G class can upgrade to Z class (Business Class)"

NOTE: GUC usage on AF used to be restricted to high fare classes only. Phone agents may not be familiar with the new rules, and may need to be gently pointed in the direction of the DL T&C on their own website.

Using upgrades on Korean (restricted to certain fare classes only)

Dedicated thread: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...ed-thread.html

"Valid on Delta-marketed, Korean Air-operated flights for use globally on Delta's published fares booked in Y or B class to Korean Air's Z class, or booked in M class to Korean Air's O class."

GUC usage on Korean requires the purchase of high fare classes, which may mean that it is cheaper to buy a discounted business class ticket than to buy an eligible coach fare and try to upgrade. Uniquely, it is possible to use GUCs to upgrade from business to first on Korean, but only if you buy the most expensive business class fares.

Using upgrades on Aeromexico

"For travel on Aeromexico operated, Delta marketed flights this certificate may be used to upgrade on Delta`s published fares booked in W, Y, B, M, H, Q, K, L, U, T, X or V class and all fare classes upgrade into Aeromexico`s O class."




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The Official - GLOBAL UPGRADE CERT success thread - Yay! I got it!

Old Apr 8, 2018, 12:00 pm
  #2836  
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 1,876
Originally Posted by flyerCO
I believe that wording means you can upgrade flights on a ticket that has flights after expiration date of GUC. However only flights to be flown while the cert is valid can be upgraded.
That very well may be what Delta intends, but that's not what the terms and conditions literally say. Furthermore, it's demonstrably true that you can upgrade flights that occur after a certificate expiration if they're confirmed and the ticket is reissued before the certificate expires.
rucksack is offline  
Old Apr 8, 2018, 12:02 pm
  #2837  
 
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 1,876
Originally Posted by davedimes
Update. Got a confirmed GUC to Delta select via Twitter team. GUC will expire today but flight is in a month - although they called it an exception and had to get supervisor approval. They wouldnt allow waitlist for Delta one, but anything is better than nothing. Thanks all.
Congrats. Make sure that the ticket is manually reissued today! Upgraded tickets usually are reissued within 24 hours but can sometimes take weeks to be reissued once confirmed.
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Old Apr 10, 2018, 6:35 pm
  #2838  
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
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Originally Posted by CaliguyNYC
So had the same thing happen. I showed waitlist for GUC. I called to see if the other DL flight had upgrade availability and the agent said there was availability on my flight that I was waitlisted. She didnt know why my WL hadnt cleared. She then processed it. .... So if I didnt call, the space could have gone to someone else. What is going on???
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Old Apr 11, 2018, 1:36 am
  #2839  
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
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What does it mean when "Tickets must be validated on Delta/006 ticket stock?"
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Old Apr 11, 2018, 1:48 am
  #2840  
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Originally Posted by yerffej201
What does it mean when "Tickets must be validated on Delta/006 ticket stock?"
Can't be issued on a ticket from say KLM which starts with 074. 006 is DL issued ticket stock. Basically DL must take over the ticket and reissue as their own if was issued by OAL. ie buy a fare directly from KLM it'll be on 074 stock. To upgrade though the ticket must be reissued by DL onto DL stock once upgraded.
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Old Apr 16, 2018, 3:33 pm
  #2841  
 
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: NYC
Programs: Delta DM
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Cleared PEK->DTW into Delta One Suites a bit before boarding. We were 2 of 5 on the upgrade list for 11 suites, with the remaining 6 clearing from the standby list. We had been waitlisted for a couple months, with the number of suites available staying in the teens up until day of departure, when it went to 11.
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Old Apr 17, 2018, 1:13 am
  #2842  
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: GEG
Programs: DL DM, IHG PLAT
Posts: 61
I encountered an interesting scenario tonight while trying to apply my GUCs on DL Marketed, KL operated flights on a trip I'm taking this November from YVR-NBO via AMS and returning from EBB-LAX via AMS.

I've been watching EF for the last few days and the YVR-NBO flights have been showing Z9 on both segments while the EBB-LAX flights were showing Z3.

​​​​​Tonight, I sent a message to DL on Twitter to confirm if they could see upgrade space and they confirmed space was available on all of the segments. I called the DM line and the agent on the phone claimed that she couldn't see any open space. I hung up and sent another message to the Twitter folks asking if space was still available and they said it was. I went ahead and booked the ticket on 006 stock online minutes after their response and then replied on Twitter with the confirmation number and asked them to process the upgrades.

The Twitter agent finally got back with me and said that they were able to successfully confirm my upgrade all the way from YVR-NBO but were only able to confirm the EBB-AMS segment on the return and said that space "disappeared" from the AMS-LAX segment. When I checked EF after their response, I noticed that the inventory dropped from Z3 to Z1.

As they were working on the upgrade, I noticed at one point that my itinerary on the DL app showed all segments being upgraded to Z but after the response from the agent, the AMS-LAX segment switched back to economy.

I asked the Twitter agent if there was availability on any other flights on the same day as my return with availability all the way and he said that there was a DL flight with availability about 6 hours later.

At this point since I'm within the 24 hour cancellation window, I'm wondering if I should try calling in to pursue that Z1 availability showing on EF, change my flight to the later DL flight with availability or just cancel. Has anyone had any issues with changing a flight during the 24 hour risk free cancellation window with a GUC applied? I don't want to lose my GUC or have to use another to confirm that last segment but also don't want to spend 11 hours in KL economy.
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Old Apr 17, 2018, 3:01 pm
  #2843  
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: GEG
Programs: DL DM, IHG PLAT
Posts: 61
I wanted to give a quick update to my post above. I checked EF this morning and noticed there was 1Z showing for the EBB-AMS-LAX legs of my return. I also tried a quick search on the Delta app for available flights and noticed they were selling my same flight in Z class with "1 seat available at this price". I tried calling DL this morning to have them check the AMS-LAX segment for upgrade space and ended up with an agent who sounded like this was his first time attempting to search for KLM upgrade inventory. I hung up and shot a message to DL on Twitter and the friendly Twitter agent started looking for space.

When he finally got back to me about 20 mins later, he mentioned that he did what he could but they could not find space on that flight. He also mentioned that the previous agent didn't properly process the upgrades for the other segments but went ahead and properly processed those upgrades and reissued the tickets.

Since I was still within the 24 hour risk free cancellation window, I asked if he could check for availability on other flights. While I stepped away from my computer for a few minutes since I hadn't heard back for several minutes, my phone rang and when I picked up, it was the agent from Twitter calling to let me know that he in fact found space on the later flight operated by DL from AMS-LAX and could place me on that flight and confirm me into J. Since I was confirmed in J all of the other flights and didn't want to risk missing the upgrade on the KL operated flight, I accepted the change and he processed it without any issues. I thought it was a nice touch that he actually called and was so pleasant to work with so I gave him a JWD cert.

As others have mentioned, it is definitely a painful and time consuming process at times to successfully use GUCs. Fortunately, thanks to the invaluable information that folks have posted here on FT and the agents on Twitter, I was successful in this case.
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Old Apr 17, 2018, 3:13 pm
  #2844  
 
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Originally Posted by drchrysler
I wanted to give a quick update to my post above. I checked EF this morning and noticed there was 1Z showing for the EBB-AMS-LAX legs of my return. I also tried a quick search on the Delta app for available flights and noticed they were selling my same flight in Z class with "1 seat available at this price". I tried calling DL this morning to have them check the AMS-LAX segment for upgrade space and ended up with an agent who sounded like this was his first time attempting to search for KLM upgrade inventory. I hung up and shot a message to DL on Twitter and the friendly Twitter agent started looking for space.

When he finally got back to me about 20 mins later, he mentioned that he did what he could but they could not find space on that flight.
Are you sure you're looking for Z availablity on the KL flight numbers? If you're seeing Z1 on DL9XXX, that's not the right thing to look for: you need Z1 on KL6XX.

IME, at least, you don't get KL-marketed flights when searching on the Delta app, which suggests you might be looking at the DL numbers.
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Old Apr 17, 2018, 3:20 pm
  #2845  
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Originally Posted by drchrysler
I wanted to give a quick update to my post above. I checked EF this morning and noticed there was 1Z showing for the EBB-AMS-LAX legs of my return. I also tried a quick search on the Delta app for available flights and noticed they were selling my same flight in Z class with "1 seat available at this price". I tried calling DL this morning to have them check the AMS-LAX segment for upgrade space and ended up with an agent who sounded like this was his first time attempting to search for KLM upgrade inventory. I hung up and shot a message to DL on Twitter and the friendly Twitter agent started looking for space.

When he finally got back to me about 20 mins later, he mentioned that he did what he could but they could not find space on that flight. He also mentioned that the previous agent didn't properly process the upgrades for the other segments but went ahead and properly processed those upgrades and reissued the tickets.

Since I was still within the 24 hour risk free cancellation window, I asked if he could check for availability on other flights. While I stepped away from my computer for a few minutes since I hadn't heard back for several minutes, my phone rang and when I picked up, it was the agent from Twitter calling to let me know that he in fact found space on the later flight operated by DL from AMS-LAX and could place me on that flight and confirm me into J. Since I was confirmed in J all of the other flights and didn't want to risk missing the upgrade on the KL operated flight, I accepted the change and he processed it without any issues. I thought it was a nice touch that he actually called and was so pleasant to work with so I gave him a JWD cert.

As others have mentioned, it is definitely a painful and time consuming process at times to successfully use GUCs. Fortunately, thanks to the invaluable information that folks have posted here on FT and the agents on Twitter, I was successful in this case.
I'm not sure I'm following all of your story, but note that Z needs to be available on the KL flight numbers, not the DL flight numbers. So Delta.com or the Delta app selling Z is meaningless, because DL.com (generally) only sells you DL flght numbers. That's probably why the upgrade wasn't available when you called, though it's fortunate it was available on a different flight the same day.

Also note per your previous post that finding AMS-LAX and LAX-EBB availability on ExpertFlyer also tells you nothing -- when searching EF you need to search for EBB-LAX (EF will show you the connecting routings). Even if Z space is available on AMS-LAX and LAX-EBB separately, it isn't necessarily available when you put the two segments together (and likewise, it might be unavailable on the two segments individually but become available when you put them together).
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Old Apr 17, 2018, 4:21 pm
  #2846  
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: GEG
Programs: DL DM, IHG PLAT
Posts: 61
Apologies for the confusion there. When I was searching for inventory on EF, I wasn't searching for specific flight numbers and instead, used the Award and Upgrades search to search for all flights between EBB-LAX using KL as the airline and selected the "Business Upgrade with Delta SWU/Global Upgrades" option. The search resulted in two options, one on KL metal (KL 537 to AMS and KL 601 to LAX showing Z1 on both legs) and a second option with mixed metal (KL 537 and KL 6068 operated by DL showing Z9 on both legs). When I originally searched using the same parameters prior to booking the flight, the first option showed Z3 on both legs of the outbound and the second option showed Z9.
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Old Apr 17, 2018, 4:45 pm
  #2847  
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Originally Posted by drchrysler
Apologies for the confusion there. When I was searching for inventory on EF, I wasn't searching for specific flight numbers and instead, used the Award and Upgrades search to search for all flights between EBB-LAX using KL as the airline and selected the "Business Upgrade with Delta SWU/Global Upgrades" option. The search resulted in two options, one on KL metal (KL 537 to AMS and KL 601 to LAX showing Z1 on both legs) and a second option with mixed metal (KL 537 and KL 6068 operated by DL showing Z9 on both legs). When I originally searched using the same parameters prior to booking the flight, the first option showed Z3 on both legs of the outbound and the second option showed Z9.
Okay, yep, sounds like you were doing it right with respect to ExpertFlyer. But just to be clear, seeing Z show up on the Delta app is still a different thing, since the Delta app shows Z space on the DL flight numbers whereas what you did on EF shows Z space on the KL flight numbers and just because one has Z space doesnt mean the other does.

I didnt notice originally your note in your second post about checking EF before checking the Delta app, sorry about that. So in theory the space should have been available for your original flight based on what you saw on EF, dont know why it wasnt (possible some agents did something wrong).
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Old Apr 20, 2018, 7:11 am
  #2848  
 
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DCA-MSP-AMS-OSL 5/17 C+ DCA-MSP, D1 MSP-AMS, Coach on the KLM leg AMS-OSL
OSL-AMS-DTW-DCA 5/24 Coach OSL-AMS, D1 AMS-DTW, FC DTW-DCA
Confirmed on booking. The agent explained that the ticket would be reissued after the 24 hour free cancellation period expired and it was.
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Old Apr 30, 2018, 9:35 am
  #2849  
 
Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 123
Phone agent can check location on list prior to check-in

Two interesting items:

1- I just talked to an agent on the Diamond Line that was able to, in a "different system", identify that I was 4 of 7 on the Global Upgrade List. That was a first for me--previous agents have said that was impossible.

2- The same agent stated that prior to check-in, position on the list is based exclusively on when the certificates were applied. Within 24-hours, fare class and other factors come into play. As a result, position on the list will change at that time.
chetdogleash is offline  
Old May 1, 2018, 3:09 pm
  #2850  
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Location: CLT
Programs: DL DM, AA Gold, Bonvoy Titanium, Hyatt Glob, IHG Plat, Hilton Diamond, Amex Plat
Posts: 438
Thanks to a schedule/carrier change, I have an interesting situation...perhaps with no good answer, but thought I'd ask. Was waitlisted for LHR-JFK-CLT on DL metal. This weekend, got the update that they were changing my flight over the atlantic to be operated by VS. Good news is now I can flex it to any flight that has confirmable space. Flight is 7/15...no routings back to the states currently have space. If you were in my shoes, would you be calling daily, or perhaps waiting until a certain timeframe before?

Thx for any insight.
youvesaiditall is offline  

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