orca15

I just got upgraded at the window for an award ticket next week. ^

rucksack

There's a great reason for this... Top elites seek out low award levels to get the best redemption value out of their points, which are obviously only offered if Delta doesn't think they'd otherwise fill their cabin. Hence, little competition for upgrades.

See my point above. I would only count on your award ticket getting upgraded if you get a low level award.

GRALISTAIR

I swear I was just about to post the same. Y Class upgrades do not disappear. They will no longer be automatic and instant. But a high level medallion on a Y fare will be very high indeed in the pecking order. And NO I am not being pedantic.

jdrtravel

Agreed, though if flying for business their could be restrictions that would lead some to purchase Y (either not allowed to buy F, need flexible ticket, or both)

JayTeaBee

This is a bit of a long story. Route is PWM-ATL-MBJ. I already have two tickets in J booked the whole way for relatives and have been trying to book Mrs. JayTeaBee & I on the same flights. Needless to say the original deal I got is nowhere to be found and prices on these flights are out of control for any seat. Eventually I was able to snag two more tickets but Y fares on the domestic segments and J (Z fare business) for the international. Tickets were all same price. I jumped on the combo fare as I thought even with companion ,Y fares would have priority at the gate based on my status. Perhaps I was wrong. Although the one thing I could have done was split my pnr after booking and at least cleared myself into 1st immediately. Wanted to have best shot for both of us to be up front on domestic segs despite not being able to book directly in.

MSPeconomist

Could it be that you purchased a Z through fare, but for the domestic segments it books into G. If G wasn't available for FC seats, the computer put you into coach but gave you Y class coach inventory. Have you looked at the fare construction? Unless you forced the ticket this way, it would be strange for the computer to break the fare and give you such a high fare class on the domestic segments unless these flights are extremely full.

JayTeaBee

It is most def a Y fare on domestic segment. I have not looked deep into the fare construction, I'm not in that deep to understand nor am I sure how to pull that now... ? It was odd, I priced this out on ITA Matrix, could not replicate on DL.dumb and ended up booking it via Priceline.


DATE AND FLIGHT STATUS CLASS MEALS/OTHER SEAT/CABIN
Fri 02Dec2016 | DL 1249 | PWM To ► ATL OPEN Y 15D
Fri 02Dec2016 | DL 727 | ATL To ► MBJ OPEN Z 1C
Fri 09Dec2016 | DL 304 | MBJ To ► ATL OPEN Z 3B
Fri 09Dec2016 | DL 380 | ATL To ► PWM OPEN Y 15D

MSPeconomist

I'm not an expert on ITA Matrix, but doesn't it show the fare construction? Normally booking a few segments in full Y would be enormously expensive, so that I would expect an I or D through fare to be cheaper in most cases rather than a broken fare using Z and Y.

When you say Priceline, can we assume that this is a published fare and not a name your own price special?

JayTeaBee

I didn't save the fare construction at the time, but here's a similar one although in this instance the international books int I one way and Z the other, both business though. The domestic are once again in Y. This is about 200$ more than what I booked:

Fare Construction (can be useful to travel agents)
PWM DL X/ATL DL MBJ 601.00INNA0NFZ DL X/ATL DL PWM 434.00ZNNL6NFZ NUC 1035.00 END ROE 1.00 XT 5.50YC 7.00XY 3.96XA 35.60US 11.20AY 21.85EK 5.00EL 20.00HG 3.00JT 20.00QK 8.00UC 14.60WD 13.50XF PWM4.50 ATL4.50 ATL4.50

Regarding priceline, there are booking scripts for ITA that someone on FT told me about: https://github.com/paul21ft/ita-matrix-powertools. I found them quite useful. I couldn't price this out on DL but the script pointed me to priceline and I locked it in.

GRALISTAIR

Correct. My company uses Travel-more and credits get applied from others in the company.

Throw Down Your Leavy Screens

So after reading the terms at http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_...-upgrades.html,

I get the impression that Y is now being treated the same as any other fare (ignoring any Double Secret Priority like Amex Reserve, corporate accounts, etc.) for purposes of upgrades. In other words, whereas upgrade priority had been:
DM Y
PM Y
GM Y
FO Y
DM B, M, ... X, V
PM B, M, ... X, V
GM B, M, ... X, V
FO B, M, ... X, V

everything is now consolidated (aha! there's the "simplification"!) into 4 tiers:

DM Y, B, M, ... X, V
PM Y, B, M, ... X, V
GM Y, B, M, ... X, V
FO Y, B, M, ... X, V

Since the time-of-ticketing Y upgrade is being taken away, everything is now handled at the respective medallion window or battlefield. That means it's impossible for an FO on Y to trump a PM on X just because the FO window is 4 days after the PM window.

Am I misunderstanding anything?

Beckles

Upgrades are being done at the window or at the gate, the infamous YBYL policy means battlefield upgrades are unlikely.

ATOBTTR

Many people mean "Upgraded at the gate" when they say "Battlefield Upgrade".

That's the impression I get initially - that it's now 4 simple tiers (plus those using instruments to UG) although I get the impression reading this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...pgrades-5.html that things could be getting a little muddy as well with corporate factors and AmEx spend factoring in too.

Beckles

And those people are using the term battlefield upgrade incorrectly, a battlefield upgrade is an upgrade aboard the aircraft.

I think saying it's 4 tiers is a simplification, and actually not quite right because you'd have a fifth tier of non-status (i.e., those with a companion on the same PNR who get dragged down below SM's) even at that level of simplification. Even beside that though you've got 15 subtiers (Y, B, M, S, H, Q, K, L, U, T, X, V, R, O, N) and then finally the tiebreakers you mention. That is murky as you say, though I suspect they are listed in order of importance in the recent material, so Reserve > Corporate > $25k MQD > No priority, then finally with date/time of request the ultimate tiebreaker if someone is tied after that. Of course, say I'm both Reserve and $25k MQD and someone else is only Reserve and not $25k MQD but otherwise the same, would I win based on having two priorities or is only the highest priority counted? Who knows ... chances of it coming down to that are slim enough that it's would be an unlikely occurrence.

GRALISTAIR

I confess to being one of those who used to use the term incorrectly. After a time on FT I now use, at the window, at the gate, battlefield. I have never had a battlefield on Delta only ever on Continental.