mra123

I stopped traveling for a little over a month this year and when I returned the FCM system had completely changed. I am a little confused as to how this system works with electronic vouchers. If there's already been threads on this, feel free to link - I couldn't find any upon an initial search.

I travel for work and my company requires us to only book main cabin. Two weeks ago I had to fly out to LAX and decided it was worth the cost to purchase the FC upgrade ahead of time as I wanted to be as relaxed as possible (I knew it was going to be a stressful trip). DL.com wasn't working so I called the PM line and asked if I could possibly use my $800-about-to-expire digital voucher to pay for the FCM. They said yes and the FC upgrades for all my flights on this trip cost a total of $456. I was issued a new voucher for the remaining amount leftover. I was surprised to find that instead of getting a ticket with an upgrade fare of R, it was as an A fare and I did get the bonus MQMs, which you didn't get with the old FCM system when you bought a FC upgrade at check-in.

I was told that if there were no more K fares available on the trip (my original ticket fare) then I wouldn't be able to use the voucher to pay for the FCM offer. It sounded like because when applying the voucher, the system looks at an available coach fare on that flight and then applies the FCM, so if there are no more seats left at your original ticket fare, you can't use a voucher and instead must use a credit card. Does anyone know if this is the case or if I'm understanding this correctly?

MSPeconomist

This sounds somewhat strange, but I suspect that when you called, you were quoted the fare difference between your ticket and the cheapest FC ticket DL was selling at that time, which happened to be A class, with some unknown underlying coach fare class that should be obvious from the fare code. G A P fares do earn 150% MQMs, but most folks here wouldn't consider them to be FCM. Instead, you bought up to FC and according to policy, DL didn't charge the change fee.

mra123

Hmm. So does that mean that when you log on to DL.com and see the offer to buy your FC upgrade, you aren't getting an FCM but rather you are paying to "buy up to FC?" If so, did they get rid of FCMs all together then? I haven't seen an offer at check-in since the change and I used to see them all the time.

MSPeconomist

It depends. Some offers on the app can cost more than the fare difference to buy up to FC, which you should be able to get by calling DL.