Duke787

Became PM after window:

BOS - RDU, 717, #2 and #3 for 0. Declined C+ list (only middle seats)

TuxTom

Hit PM after my flight last week. 10/47 for upgrade eligible segments as a GM this year. Not great by any means, but I suspect 21% success is better than most GMs.
First PM flight tomorrow on YYC-SLC-RNO. YYC-SLC cleared at the window, SLC-RNO I'm currently 3 for 0 seats.

barney44

Silver with Reserve Card - Two pleasant surprises.

BOS-RDU 717 Cleared for myself and companion(No Status) to F at T-24 Thurs AM Flight

RDU-BOS 717 Cleared for myself and companion(No Status) to F at T-24 Sunday PM Flight

dobs41

Success story here:

Silver medallion bought 2 x one way JFK->SFO 757-200 (75S) award tickets for 30k miles total. Both upgraded to Delta One 24 hours from flight time. Companion did not have status and 16 people on upgrade list (didn't see my name). Not exactly sure what happened but I'll take it!

blitzcon

MSN-ATL Fri 6:30 PM was a light load. Paid ticked, gold. Wife, no status, was on a separate award ticket. Requested her upgrade over the phone.
My upgrade cleared T-72, wife cleared T-24. So not only do companions on a separate award ticket clear but they CAN clear in advance!

IND-DTW Sun badly delayed flight. Paid ticket for both me and the wife, same reservation. Sky Club put us on standby for an earlier flight, then manually cleared us into regular economy. Couldn't add us to the upgrade list per usual IT. At the gate, 6 seats in First opened as people switched flights. The gate agent manually moved us to First at boarding. Then we waited on the ground as they fixed two lavatories...

I've had additional success getting me and companions into plus seats by asking nicely at the gate, even though technically they aren't eligible on separate reservations.

btonkid12345

Great. More evidence of the UG system not woring according to published rules.

I'm sure the DMs and PMs sitting in the back would love to know a SM and a non status companion was sitting up front in their seat. (Nothing personal against the specific poster; just against DL)

pvn

how do you know it's broken

CMK10

As FO:
1/26: DL 782 RDU-DTW 717-200 X Fare: 19 and 20 out of 28 for F, 2 and 3 of 3 for C+
1/29: DL 4051 JFK-RDU CRJ-900 X Fare: 1 and 2 out of 6 for F. Annoyingly there was an empty seat in F but the F/A refused to move me up because "only the gate agent can"

As GM:
2/03: DL 3623 RDU-LGA CRJ-900 X Fare: 1 and 2 out of 6 for F.
2/10: DL 3623 RDU-LGA CRJ-900 X Fare: Cleared with Companion at T-72.
2/22 DL 5484 RDU-EWR CRJ-700 X Fare: Cleared at T-72
2/25 DL 1606 LAS-ATL A-321 T Fare: #1 0 of 17, C+ at T-72
2/26 DL 2351 ATL-RDU MD-88 T Fare: #38 of 64, 21 of 35 for C+
3/30 DL 2773 RDU-DTW MD-90 T Fare: Cleared at Window
3/30 DL 6201 DTW-YYZ CRJ-900 T Fare: Cleared at Window
3/31 DL 2551 YYZ-ATL 717-200 V Fare: Cleared at Gate
3/31 DL 1177 ATL-RDU MD-88 V Fare: Cleared at Gate
4/04 DL 6228 RDU-DCA CRJ-700 V Fare: Cleared at Window
4/13 DL 6250 RDU-DCA CRJ-700 X Fare: #3 of 11 at the Gate, one person pulled up after boarding.
4/22 DL 1663 MKE-ATL MD-88 X Fare: #9 of 19
4/22 DL 889 ATL-RDU MD-88 X Fare: #9 of 14 at the Gate, one person pulled up after boarding
4/26 DL 5212 RDU-JFK CRJ-900 U Fare: #1 of 4 at the Gate
4/30 DL 6280 BOS-RDU CRJ-900 L Fare: Cleared at T-72
5/19 DL 2012 ORD-ATL 737-700 V Fare: Cleared at T-72
5/19 DL 2034 ATL-RDU 757-200 V Fare: #4 of 8
5/24 DL 2856 MCO-RDU 717-200 X Fare: Cleared at T-72
6/01 DL 4562 RDU-EWR CRJ-900 V Fare: Cleared at T-72
6/03 DL 1238 MDT-ATL 717-200 L Fare: Cleared at the Gate
6/03 DL 889 ATL-RDU 757-200 L Fare: #12 of 19. There were 5 empty F seats and the gate agent came on board and asked the lead flight attendant if she could pull people up. Lead F/A said no
6/05 DL 1564 RDU-ATL MD-88 Q Fare: #12 of 35. Pretty high finish for a GM on this route, guess the Q Fare helped.
6/24 DL 2096 GSO-ATL MD-88 V Fare: Cleared at T-22
6/24 DL 2544 ATL-MEM MD-88 V Fare: #2 of 10
6/25 DL 2106 LIT-ATL 717-200 T Fare: Cleared at T-36
6/25 DL 0540 ATL-GSO MD-88 T Fare: #8 of 14, One Passenger pulled up after boarding
6/30 DL 5227 RIC-LGA CRJ-900 T Fare: Cleared at T-72. Went out with one empty seat.

As PM:
7/15 DL 2540 BOS-RDU 717-200 L Fare: Cleared at T-120. Took VDB
7/16 DL 1977 BOS-RDU 717-200 W Fare: #4 of 9. This was my rebooked VDB flight
7/22 DL 2953 DTW-ATL A-320 X Fare: Cleared at T-96
7/22 DL 2590 ATL-GSO MD-88 X Fare: Cleared at T-96
7/24 DL 6201 RDU-DCA CRJ-700 X Fare: Cleared at T-120 with Companion
8/4 DL 6218 RDU-DTW CRJ-700 T Fare: Cleared at T-120
8/4 DL 3738 DTW-GRR CRJ-900 T Fare: Cleared at T-120
8/22 DL 1248 AUS-ATL A-321 X Fare: Cleared at T-115
8/22 DL 551 ATL-GSO MD-88 X Fare: Cleared at T-115

My GM brother flew the same flights back with me and cleared only on ATL-GSO. He also missed both his outbound flights (GSO-ATL-AUS) on 8/21

Currently 60.53% (23/38) Glad to be essentially unbeaten as Plat.

dobs41

Also have more than $10k in Delta spend for the year. So maybe the algorithm isn't as dumb as it appears.

btonkid12345

Multiple examples that have occurred to myself; to other posters here; and do you really believe there were so few medallions on one of the few domestic D1 routes that they could upgrade a silver not even at the gate - but 24 hours out?

If your spend was significant enough to matter to DL outside the published Medallion criteria, you would be a 360.

Otherwise, lots of people have spend above what is required for their status level, and $10K doesn't mean much to DL (two DL1 seats last minute would be $2- $3K each, domestically).

You still are only a silver medallion. And it still seems like their upgrade processor worked outside of the published rules - denying hard earned Elite Benefits - for reasons that are precisely unknown, but likely due to poor IT.

daloosh

I am actually thrilled for dobs41, that they had a D1 experience and enjoyed it. Those unexpected bonus things in life (and flying) are always a welcome distraction and pleasure. And I do not begrudge the occasional unexplained upgrade, as a medallion flying that route with some regularity.

But I agree that from the facts known, that should have not happened. As a PM, my spend on Delta tickets is much more than $10K, and I have never upgraded into D1 on the SFO route without RUCs. I don't think my MQDs are over $10K, because I'd be close to a DM then. As a Plat with a Reserve card, I usually fall into the 9th or 10th or something-teenth place for 0 seats. San Francisco is just not that big a market for Delta compared to United and there just can't be that many empty seats without Diamonds in them. Is it possible for a perfect storm to have occurred for dobs41, maybe, but unlikely.

pvn

90% of the reports in the shena thread end up having a perfectly cromulent explanation, yet people still run in there and report things with the flimsiest of context.

there are literally thousands of transcon D1 seats going back and forth, is it unlikely that this particular FO got upgrade, yes, certainly, but is it impossible that eventually an FO would hit the jackpot? No, not at all.

dobs41

Yep, I agree that based on their posted upgrade priority chart it seems like a low probability event. Mitigating factors might be that it seems like a fairly unbooked flight (departing 5pm, arriving 9pm) with 60+ open seats a few days out and 13 of 16 Delta One seats unbooked.

From my perspective, seems like three plausible explanations:

1. Pure luck
2. IT error (although I've had good luck with upgrades in the past year on Delta)
3. Targeted marketing. Although I'm only silver, my Delta spend YTD is already $10k and I have another $5k flight booked. My travel has also ramped up significantly this year, and I've had several long-haul trips on other carriers ($20k+ of spend, which will likely get me United Platinum this year). Last year I had no status on any carriers. I'd be surprised if Delta's marketing team didn't have access to this data through buying it from credit card companies, travel agents, other airlines, etc. Giving a free high-value Delta One upgrade to someone like me (especially when I'm travelling with a companion) seems like a no-brainer in terms of winning loyalty (has definitely affected my likelihood of booking Delta for long-haul in the future). Giving it to a Delta Diamond/Platinum members is unlikely to result in any change in purchasing behavior on their part. This would also generally be unnoticeable for other elites given the lack of upgrade list transparency and fact that even DM/PM don't expect transcon Delta One upgrades with regularity. I'm assuming the long-haul flights are also huge money-makers for them. Just speculation...

As a question, is the minimum requirement to get onto the upgrade list for Delta One on transcon flights Silver Medallion? AKA everyone on the 16 person list who I upgraded in front of has at least the same status as me?

pvn

I just booked a domestic flight for monday (so we're already inside the DM/PM upgrade window), Q fare. I was instantly upgraded to F on one of the segments, which happens fairly frequently when I book inside the window, but this was weird. It dumped me into 1D, so I went to the seat map to pick a different seat, and the entire cabin is greyed out.

I just did a dummy booking for that leg, and F is indeed sold out.

How is that possible? Why would they upgrade me into F and close it out rather than save that seat for a possible purchase??? I've never seen anything like this before.

It's a republic-operated E170 flight, FWIW.

ElmhurstNick

BWI-ATL-AUS on Sunday night, AUS-ATL-DCA late afternoon/evening Tuesday. Gold, no reserve. Ended up somewhere between #12 and #19 for 1-3 empty seats on all four legs.