My back to back JFK-SIN trips start tomorrow. They told me that the process was automated and it would go through automatically, but I called them as soon as I saw that upgrade inventory was available in the GDS for two of the segments. I'm still checking hoping that I can catch it when other inventory opens for the other two segments. One of them only has 2 J seats even available for sale, so I expect that one to go to the gate if it even clears at all.

see, that's what I am afraid of. OP inventory has become non existent. They are totally holding onto every single last seat in hopes of selling them at regular J prices. Being at the top of the heap doesn't mean a thing anymore.

When facing a situation in which a domestic leg has not cleared on an international itinerary, how can one tell whether the domestic segment has been properly coded for the upgrade? It used to say something like "SYSTEMWIDE UPGRADE REQUESTED". Now with the change to manage upgrades, I don't know. Is it the case that if 2 seat maps are displayed for the flight, this is coded correctly?

Also, the poster above (CAETrvlr) mentioned upgrade inventory in the GDS. I had assumed after the Expert Flyer this was much harder to come by, does someone have a handy thread to look at (three letter searches never work)?

No, the website doesn't tell you that you have an upgrade requested anymore. Kind of a pain.

Inventory is still available through a GDS if you have a subscription or a travel agent friend willing to look things up for you. DL simply prohibited ExpertFlyer from publishing the data it retrieved from a GDS... but the GDS still has the data.

I've had a GUC waitlisted on only one segment on a leg; when it cleared, I had the same GUC waitlisted on the other segment. (If it didn't clear for the long segment, I wasn't going to waste a GUC on a short domestic segment I was likely to clear anyway.)

This. 8 seats cleared 5 minutes before boarding on my last LAX-SYD. They held onto 8 seats!! I was #1 on the list but still didn't get a seat choice.

If you saw that you were #1 on the list for 8 seats, why didn't you tell the GA the seat you preferred?

What, and risk being heard asking for this by a fellow FlyerTalker and outed in our DYKWIA thread?!?!?

I think not!

I went to speak with her and asked her nicely if the upgrades had processed yet, and she told me curtly to take a seat and wait. So I didn't bother asking for any favors.

The time before when I did specifically tell a GA my preferred seat assignment (at SYD) I was told 'The computer does all that'

So I don't see the point anymore...

To follow up on all of this, in case anyone is interested, through a combination of checking the GDS, messaging Delta Assist when I saw inventory, and taking what I could get at the gate for the rest, out of 10 segments this week, I will have flown one in coach and the rest in Delta One. I was able to confirm a couple of days early an upper deck seat NRT-DTW, which I leave on in a little over an hour.

I was never below #1 on the upgrade list for UGs that went to the gate, which is a good thing, because a couple of them only had one J seat available by the time upgrades were cleared.

Ironically, the only leg that I flew in coach was a 7 am JFK-SEA before connecting on to NRT. I would bet that I was either a victim of FCM on that one or that there were IRROPS the day before that filled up the first class cabin on that flight. I was number one on the waitlist for 0 seats.

Anyway, I appreciate all of the input. My comment on any survey that I get will be that I hope that DL will provide the same training for Diamond phone agents that they provide for the @DeltaAssist twitter team. HUACA is a PITA, but I always got great answers in short order from the twitter team.