Crazyhotelguy

Stop reverting to facts

MSPeconomist

PREM is a boarding group, not a cabin class. I think you mean that you were upgraded to FC, but seat 4C isn't FC on all aircraft types. In particular, some aircraft only have three rows of FC.

sethb

Look at who made that response, and his other posts. He hates it when people get free upgrades because it hurts his stock price. For some reason, he doesn't seem to mind people "buying" F for $-500.

sethb

They couldn't have known that "a few days before" when OP usually cleared.

sethb

My record at LAX (many many years ago) was arriving at the terminal at 6:59 PM, for a 7:00 PM flight on which I had a reservation but hadn't yet purchased a ticket. The flight left on time. I was on it. So was my checked suitcase.

DCADeltaRoadWarrior

You're absolutely right I wasn't technically correct. That said, for a PM, PREM isn't attainable unless you're in first. Unless I'm missing something.

ATOBTTR

OP: One possibility is you hit a day with a lot of Gov't travel on YCA fares. Perhaps a big travel week for something at Wright-Patt. Maybe several people from the same program office heading to a meeting or a lot of people from WP heading off to a big conference somewhere. YCA fares are in the middle between Full Y and all other fare buckets. A YCA fare won't clear until the window opens, but once the UG window opens, it is treated like a Y fare, so unless you were on a Y fare as well (or trying to use instruments), even a Silver Medallion would be ahead of you. And in my experience when I was at WP (still holds true even though I'm located elsewhere) - a lot of gov't conferences or work trips were set-up with meetings or the event on Tuesday through Thursday with Monday and Friday being the travel day so as to reduce weekend travel, especially for the DoD civilians so they wouldn't have to charge either comp time or get paid while traveling on a non-standard workday.

MSPeconomist

However, many of these government fare tickets, whether they're YCA or HCA, aren't issued until the day before travel, which is when they become eligible for upgrades (not at the DM/PM or GM windows). As a result, they're likely to be at the top of the list for gate upgrades.

ATOBTTR

It's usually 72 hours before travel and while different from my current office as my current base more closely follows the true 72 hour mark, my experience at Wright-Patt is that the commercial travel office that handled reservations would usually ticket your flight 3 BUSINESS days before travel my current office is 72 hours usually, which if you were traveling on a Monday, meant your flight would ticket on the Wednesday before.

Also, if UG inventory is being held back to the gate (OP said in their case, they finished #6 for 0), then when any YCA fares were ticketed wouldn't matter, except as a final tie-breaker between other YCA fares.

MSPeconomist

I've had bad experiences with a government agency having the tickets issued in the middle of the night on the morning of travel. There's nothing like discovering on your way to the airport that not only aren't on the upgrade list but also don't even have a ticket. OTOH, after this they have been very understanding about trying to issue the ticket before the upgrade window opens.

mattp1987

I've had upgrades on YCA fares clear before the window opens. The key is getting it ticketed, not just making the reservation, before the window. I think the standard for DoD travel made in DTS is ticketing 3 business days out which means for most trips the ticket is issued within the DM/PM window for the outbound but before the window for the return.

jmertic

As a point of reference, CLE has gotten just has hard. CLE-DTW last Monday, first flight of the day on the CR7, PM on a B fare, needed the BF UG to make it. Missed the upgrade on this same flight back in April as a PM.

Compare this to my CLE-JFK flight in early October, first flight of the day, only 4 of us in F on the CR9.

MSPeconomist

YCA used to clear pretty soon (several hours or overnight) after ticketing (before the elite windows) but not instantly like FULL Y do. DL might have changed the rules since then regarding the extent to which YCA is treated almost like FULL Y.

jrl767

I sure don't miss dealing with WPAFB travel ... or, for that matter, any govt travel office

ATOBTTR

Interesting. I was always led to believe that YCAs wouldn't clear until the window opened, even if ticketed in advance. I do avoid doing that in all but a couple rare cases because it does incur the extra fee, so I've only had the travel office ticket my flights more than 3 days out when I've gone on leave right before departing on TDY and I didn't want to be on leave and then show up and the airport for my TDY and find out there was an issue with my travel arrangements.

Well there's a couple of potential factors. For gov't travel, the travel authorization has to be approved by an approving official before it can be ticketed. No approval. No ticket and trip (and all reservations) are canceled. Could also be a back-up at the commercial travel office.
Another possibility - were you on the controlled spend account cards? I avoided the fiasco because I managed to avoid converting over to one during the short stint, but during the time when the gov't (at least the DoD) went to the Controlled Spend Account cards for travel, there were many issues with people showing up at the airport and finding out their reservations were never ticketed, among the numerous other issues that the cards had.