Hi everyone!

Long time lurker here, hoping for suggestions and guidance on upgrades

My wife and I are traveling from JFK to GRU (Sao Paulo) on Delta. We have the 'X' class fare on the way there, and 'L' class on the way back. I also recently opened the AMEX Delta Gold card, which gave me 50k miles. But when I bought the ticket, there was no 'pay with miles option' and the round trip fare would have been something to the tune of 80k per person. When I asked if I could upgrade using points, I was told I would need to upgrade to M or L class, which is an additional $800 pp. I currently do not have status with Delta, and EC is coming up as $139 per person per leg. Nearly all of first class and EC seats are available both ways.

What options do I have, both flying there and return? Is there a chance that I can get an upgrade to EC or possibly first on any leg? Are the same-day upgrades or standby options something that I can hope for? I have an AMEX platinum, which will give me $200 incidental reimbursement, which I am willing to use but am hoping to get the most bang for the buck.

Thanks for your help!

Using miles to UG on Delta requires a M, B, or Y fare. While there are some reports of UGs being offered on some routes at OLCI ($700+ IIRC), it is not all that common.

DL is not likely to give you EC for free. See http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...t-seating.html to help you decide if it is worth the money.

Thanks for the link, that's helpful. Do you know if they ever lower the cost of EC, even on the day of travel?

Apart from a relatively infrequent EC sale, no. Also, IME, EC does tend to fill up on many flights.

In my experience (mostly flights to Asia that I book around 2 or 3 months in advance) there are some EC sales sometimes even at 50%. I would just keep checking everyday or so. Good luck!

I will keep checking, thanks for the advice! Is there any rhyme or reason to the sale days? Does it occur within a certain time from the date of the flight?

Not that I know of, but it happens more frequently when there are many empty EC seats.

18/28 seats are still available and we're less than a week away from the flight. Are there any other tactics that I should be aware of to get the best chances?