Buying first class is great until something goes wrong...
 

Buying first class tickets on Delta is great and has some advantages when trying to go SDC until something goes wrong during your travel like it happened to me today. I was on a my way from Chicago via Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale. The first flight had a mechanical delay which caused me to misconnect in Atlanta. All later flights (I was on the 11am ATL-FLL) were sold out. My options were to take a standby downgrade or to stay the night (paid for by Delta - Hotel, Food, etc). I picked the first option and was listed as standby on the next flight. While first class had checked in full, shortly after I was cleared into coach, the agent upgraded 2 confirmed passengers from coach to first class which was in accordance with their policies. Delta would rather upgrade a coach passenger from the upgrade list, than honor a first class ticket and confirm me as seats became available. Now they had to refund the fare difference and also issued me a travel voucher. If I would have chosen the first class seat on the next day, Delta would have rather paid for hotel & meals than accommodating me in the ticketed class of service. Bottom line: First class tickets are great until something goes wrong. So why should I pay the premium, only to end up in coach.....?

Do you have an elite status with Delta? My previous two experience of misconnection due to DL’s fault, DL app suggested next route with rest of flights were all automatically upgraded to first class as I purchased them (my original tickets were not first class).

I think this is just one of those nuisances of commercial airline travel. Most people don't ever realize it because they don't buy F outright. (I didn't until late last year.)

I've been having basically the same experience as you but on AA. Twice this calendar year (note it's only February 13) I've been DG'd on paid first class tickets. Both downgrades were to Main Cabin not even Main Cabin Extra since I don't have AA status.

I had this happen a couple of months ago due to weather, and I was upset about it when it happened. I waited until I got home to take it up with Delta, because I knew the gate agents were doing the best they could given the situation. By the time I was done, Delta had refunded the difference and given me enough vouchers to pay for my next trip. You just have to know what to ask for, and you are in the driver's seat in this type of scenario (similar to IDB).

My travel companion also received the same treatment, so we received a bunch of Delta dollars to use. And CSR covered all of the additional costs via the Trip Delay Reimbursement benefit (although they tried really hard to avoid processing my claim), so it ended up working out really well.

All depends on your outlook, similar to an IDB situation. Would I have preferred not to be delayed and to fly on my original flights in First Class? Yes. Was I happy that Delta paid me to take a trip with them? Yes. With the money I saved, I can now use FCM on my next flight to try again.

This is very true, and yes on DL, AA and others. The "problem" is that the FC cabins are too few seats, and upgrades are processed too far out. DL typically will hold back one, but just one, F/J seat, until the time of boarding, so if there is already someone ahead of you on the standby for the one (if even that) available FC seat, then yes, you have no choice but an involuntary downgrade.

Solution to this would be to leave more upgrades to be processed just at time of boarding, thus leaving more FC seats open for irrops, mis-connects, last minute full F/J purchase, etc. That should keep the higher paying customers happy and bring more revenue, so frankly I am not sure why DL (and others) don't do that.

Do you have any elite status with Delta? I had two misconnection experiences due to DL's faults, each time the Delta App will suggest a best route with all the seats automatically upgraded as I purchased the first class, although my original tickets were not first class. This happened when I had GM and PM status.

That is not the problem here. OP expressly stated that two passengers were upgraded ahead of him from the Y cabin. This is not the situation where the F cabin is full of freebies and a paying passenger sits in the back.

UA does it correctly. AA should do it correctly, but GA's louse it up routinely because they process it incorrectly. DL does it plain and simply wrong.

As an F pax seated in Y due to space constraints, you should immediately come ahead of any form of UG. If that is properly dealt with at the time the standby is processed, this should not be an issue. But, DL's algorithm doesn't process it that way.

Doubly stupid because DL chooses to do more than it is required. The COC only require a refund of the fare difference. The voucher is a CS gesture.

My understanding is that in an IROP situation, a paid F ticket gets highest priority ahead of everyone else on the standby list. Has that changed recently?

In this day and age, of so many Elite-heavy routes and FCM I have no idea why they process upgrades more than 3-6 hours ahead of departures.

I agree that Paid F should always get priority of the DMs who got upgrades 5 days out or whatever.

Does it really make you sleep better at night that you know you got the upgrade 1-3-5 days in advance versus a few hours prior?

Since I find myself buying more paid F and/or buy-ups I'd rather be able to get accommodated than the GMs who got upgraded far in advance on el-cheapo fares so I can stand-by to a middle seat in row 39 in front of the lav.

Because it makes it feel like F seats are in demand the last few days, causing buy ups.

If they left 5-10+ empties then many people would buy the cheapest, thinking it's an easy UG at the gate only to find out all DMs are still on the gate list.

Plus, it raises the price for last minute tickets because the UGs eat up lower discount F availability

Yeah, I don't think the problems is TOO MANY upgrades being processed in advance. I mean, how many complaints are there here about too many upgrades?!?

I do think it's FCM / selling FC seats too inexpensively. They're priced to fill as much of the cabin as they can; I think their target from a few years ago was to sell 80% of the seats.

Agreed. It's possible for agents to waitlist you with a higher priority than complimentaray upgrade requests when you're ticketed for the front cabin.

We can't be certain that the customers upgraded were not also F pax who also had IRROPS.


I believe that one purpose of the advanced upgrade program is so that DL can open up more coach inventory to sell, especially when Y tickets are the most expensive. I actually think that this is probably their #1 reason for offering advanced upgrades. I don't think they care where you sit as long as you buy a ticket.