Upgrade discrimination against US over Europeans? - What Gives?
 

So I wanted to do my yearly crazy trip over thanksgiving going from SLC-ATL-SCL Nov 25 (to go to Easter Island) - returning same route Nov 30, 2015. Fare is "U", upgraded from ATL-SCL-ATL on a WWU, but waitlisted for "F" SLC-ATL/ATL-SLC despite an open "F" cabin - oh, well, this is 2015, no big deal.

Enter my French friend "Pierre", who lives in Marseilles, France and barely made Diamond this Year (in contrast to my 200K MQM's and a reserve card) who when hearing about my crazy trip wanted to join me. He got a separate ticket (paid) CDG-SLC r/t and then booked the same SLC-ATL-SCL-ATL-SLC - also in "U" - as me, and despite doing this a month after me got upgraded on all the legs at booking including SLC-ATL/ATL-SLC. Well, now the F cabin is open minus 1 (:confused:) - still waitlisted.

(I guess it is payback from all the times I have blazed past him on TSA pre and Global Entry!! :p)

But Go figure!!

Sounds like it was more of an issue of with the automated upgrade waitlist system not clearing properly.

As for discrimination, well, I'd gladly give up domestic upgrades if it meant that those of us overseas could get rid the international origination surcharge on award travel. But that is another matter . . .

My guess is either one of your certificate was not coded properly. Upgrade was not available at time of booking, became available later but could not be processed due to some error in the code. Comes Pierre, books and calls. Upgrade is available and Pierre gets it.
I would cal if I were you. As a matter of fact, when wait listed for a GUC (I think that is what you meant by WWU?), I call in regular intervals to make sure upgrade has not become available. Sure enough, several times it did become available but did not clear on its own.
One time, the agent had inserted a RUC number in my request instead of a GUC. One of many errors that could explain your experience.

Are any of the flights direct flight numbers? If it's book as a direct number for you and two separate flight numbers for him there could be an issue. On my phone and can't pull up flights to check. Otherwise it could easily be a coding issue.

I'm confused as to why the possibility of US vs. European discrimination was brought up (other than as clickbait.) Once a GUC is applied to a reservation, it's supposed to be automatic if a seat opens up that you get it. Of course, there are lots of problems with the "automated" process, but there's certainly no "if country of origin is not US" logic in there.

We know there are bugs in the system. Are you saying you know what all of them are based on?

No. But even if it's a bug, that's not discrimination, that's a bug.

No, it's discrimination caused by a bug. No reason it can't be both.

What is the evidence that there is discrimination? A "European" got an UG and OP, resident in the US didn't?

When they both used GUCs for the UG and OP did it first, yes.

We know that isn't supposed to be the policy. We don't know why they did it that way.

May have nothing to do with Europe vs US. The OP knows only that Pierre got the upgrade. Other U.S. Medallions might have also seen their upgrade processed at the same time.
Issue is likely that GUC was not applied properly.
Has OP called the DM line to get things straightened out? Best course of action IMO.

I believe title is what we call "jumping to conclusions"..




Everyone grab your pitchforks, Delta is being prejudiced towards Americans over Europeans..

#BOYCOTTDELTA

+1... Trying to book a r/t CDG-IST with miles and forgot about the surcharge. The award was going to be 40,000 miles + 218 Euros, the ticket costs 238 Euros....