after upgrade to Comfort Plus seat unassigned
 

This has happened to me twice recently: After being upgraded to Comfort+ with a seat assignment (either I liked the seat assigned and didn't change it, or saw a better one and changed it, I don't remember which though maybe one of each) I subsequently got unassigned the seat. The upgrade itself was still there and in one case I noticed in time to still get myself a good seat. In the other case by the time I noticed the only seat left was a middle seat--I haven't flown that flight yet and so far have decided to leave my seat unassigned--it can't get any worse than that middle seat.

Has anyone else experienced this? Both bookings are business trips booked using my employer-mandated online booking web site.

I have not investigated with Delta. I am in the software business and have worked with airline reservations software from time to time and remember that while lots of history about what happened to a reservation was stored in the history of the reservation one thing that was not stored was seat changes. It's been a while so maybe that's changed and I should call Delta and see if they can tell me what happened.

By "unassigned seat," are you referring to your original coach seat after the upgrade to Comfort+ ? Once this upgrade to Comfort+ occurs, this becomes your new assigned seat and your original coach seat is opened up. You cannot transfer between classes unless you call Delta and ask them for a better seat in coach (an aisle or emergency exit for instance).

Or are you suggesting that once you are upgraded to Comfort+, you lose that seat assignment and thus you are left with no seat at all? If this is the case, it's not normal and you should definitely call Delta for an explanation.

I have experienced the same on some of my upgrades to first recently. It seems to randomly unassign my seat. It doesn't happen every time, which makes it more frustrating. For reference, we use Concur.

You've been able to "downgrade" yourself via seatmap for a few months. No more needing to call. However once downgraded, you must call to be upgraded to C+ again.

If this was a corporate travel agency booking, is there a chance that either the reservation isn't ticketed yet and that's causing difficulty when the "upgrade" is processed or with your seat assignments? Alternatively, could your (human) corporate travel agent be changing your seat assignments, perhaps not realizing that you have status or seeing an upgrade that would violate policy if it were paid?

We use Concur also. I bet we are experiencing the same thing. I had the thought that possibly Concur, or Concur's back end--might be different for different Concur customers--is incorrectly sending some message or something to the Delta system that causes the seat unassignment.

I guess for now I'll just check the seat assignments frequently. I agree it is frustrating.

I use Concur (hosted by American Express Business Travel and mandated by my company) and this is occurring to me regularly. By this I mean that my seats are changed to unassigned after Delta upgrades me (they upgrade both the seats and the fare class).

I called Delta and they confirmed that Concur is doing this.

I called Concur and they said yes their system is automatically doing this because the seat assignments were changed in the 'backend'. They acted like Delta upgrading the seats was the problem. Completely frustrating. I asked that they turn off auto assignment of seating for me but they barely responded to that so I guess that is not possible. I spoke to two different people with almost no recognition of this being an issue and certainly no apology.

I opened a ticket with Concur/Amex and will report back if I hear anything. I am not optimistic.

Concur is and always shall be a piece of crap unfortunately.

Yes, I have, and yes, I also use Concur.

It happened to me twice in a row, but the last few times seems to not have happened.

Hmm...can’t say this happened to -this- Concur user, but just as infuriatingly, the auto-upgrade is being treated as a ticket exchange by my platform (not sure if this is concur’s Fault or our corporate TA). Not only does this result in a higher fee but it also results in a ton of paperwork which I have to slog through to find the right one for expense purposes.

one of those things I will -not- miss about Delta...

Contradancer - Do you use American Express Global Business Travel? I know you said you use Concur but wondering if AEGBT is your travel agent and they use Concur.

Anyway, I have had an exchange with AEGBT and they have confirmed that the unassigning of seats that were upgraded by Delta is being done by their system as part of their automated seat assignment process. It is not Concur. I did not get a technical answer but it sounds like their automated seat assignment process tries to over ride Delta's "back end" change with a seat assignment based on your profile. I don't know why it leaves your seat unassigned versus actually assigning a seat. Either way would be bad because it is removing the upgraded seat Delta assigned.

They absolutely need to fix that automated process. The representative I talked to didn't know for sure if that is in process.

The current solution is to tell the AEGBT reservation person to anable the "seat stopper" feature for your reservation. That will stop the automated seat assignment process. But you have to do it by placing a call to AEGBT for each reservation. I asked if it could be enabled permanently and was told no. It's probably just as easy to go fix it at Delta.com after AE unassigns the seat.

I am going to find another way to escalate this.

For a Data Point when I book my flight the seat is automatically uassigned and then I go ahead and assign it during the purchase process. Some people have had issues where they booked with a third party website that only forwards seat requests but does not let you assign your seat. I always call in to the airline no matter how I booked my flight to get a better seat.

With regards to upgrades to Comfort+ it would seem like the backend is not so smart and it will just give you Comfort+ but not assign a seat . What would be cool is if you could list a few preferred seats in your profile and if its available it would automatically assign you to one of your preferred seats. Now granted you would have to add the preferred seats for every aircraft Delta flies but in the end you would be guaranteed a good seat.

For instance if there is no good Delta Comfort+ seat it would assign you a better Main Cabin Seat and then it could give you a voucher for free drinks/EATS menu.

What is interesting is that when the aircraft changed I kept my First Class Bulkhead Seat albeit it being on an MD 90 switched from a 757.

American Express
 

Yes, I use American Express Global Business Travel. Good to know there may be a way to prevent this on a case by case basis. Thank you breinders.

This is happening to me too, losing the seat assigned by Delta at the same time as I get notified by the agency that I've been upgraded. It's probably happening to everyone in our company who gets Comfort+ and first class upgrades. It only unassigns the seat that was upgraded, not those that were previously upgraded. It's a known issue that is being worked on by the travel agency and Delta. I actually like Concur, better than what we had before once you get used to it although I'd rather be booking directly with Delta (which would stop this annoying issue from happening).