xliioper

There's probably a decent percentage of those pax who would have chosen the cash option if the mileage option wasn't offered (the mileage amount is simply the cash amount at 1 CPM, but without the 7.5% US excise tax). A handful of anecdotal observations is not really sufficient to be making dramatic generalizations. A number of pax have posted observations that contradict yours. The FCM thread has been around since 2011. It's not like these types of complaints are really new. A lot of upgrade success depends on which routes you fly and when you fly them. You have yet to disclose that highly pertinent piece of information.

AANYC1981

bretthexum

My upgrades as a DM have gone way down in 2019. Personally I am going to go dual status as I'll hit my 2020 DM spend this month. Going to status match to AA, and use them for flights I have to connect with. If the SkyMiles devalatution hadn't been so bad, I'd reconsider... but really - what's the point of spending more than 15K with Delta? Other airlines have much better value with miles (although I see they're following Delta's lead with getting rid of award chart)

manacit

To everyone thinking of switching away from DL: SOUNDS GREAT! More UGs for me!

Without the actual data at our fingertips, it's going to be impossible to tell. Travel patterns shift, the economy changes, it's really difficult to tell whether upgrades are less often across the board. That being said, if UA or AA offers you a better trip (timings, UG %, etc), you'd be silly not to take it if it doesn't sacrifice the rest of your travels.

Personally, my last few trips have been great: SEA-SFO, SFO-SEA, LAX-SEA and now SEA-JFK have all upgraded at the window or shortly after in the last couple of weeks. I've only missed SEA-LAX, which wasn't a surprise - Friday night and one of the last departures, I wasn't even top 5 on the UG list at the gate!

Lux Flyer

Using miles to cover the upgrade has been around for at least a few years as well. I believe the only thing they changed recently was making it available via mobile, in addition to a PC. IIRC in 2017 I did it on a PC booking.after I bought my coach ticket in cash, then paid the upgrade cost with miles. Also believe it used to require certain economy fare classes to be eligible to use the miles for an upgrade, so I don't think V/X buckets would qualify, which is why people don't always see the option; maybe they changed that too?

mot29

AANYC1981

iflyalexair

I'm NYC based. I book all of my travel very far in the future since my leisure and work travel schedule is set way in advance. I'm at 100% C+ at booking. I have only missed one upgrade this year on PHX-JFK redeye. Otherwise, my companion and I have both been upgraded to F, including on various Delta One transcons.

xliioper

Did you pay for upgrade with miles online, or did you have to call an agent to perform upgrade? They previously allowed you to upgrade online at time of purchase, but not post purchase. For that you had to call in and request a mileage upgrade award which depended on availability and only certain fare classes were eligible (T or higher for domestic). The ability to pay for FCM offers with miles post-purchase was only added in 2018 and the ability to do it on the mobile app was recently added. They changed the FCM system back in May of 2017. Previously, I would rarely see offers on X/V fares. Now I see them consistently on all flights (including X/V) and the FCM offers no longer appear to vary with original fare class. I've seen the exact same offer for both a revenue ticket and award ticket on the exact same flight. The only time I see them go away seems to be when the number of seats left in the FC buckets drop below a certain threshold (typically 3 or less). I suspect they want set aside a certain number of seats for last minute purchases rather than offering all of them as upgrades.

FireEmblemPride

I missed LAX-SFO for the first time ever this year. Kind of shocking as I've ridden it at least, maybe, 45-50 times?

btonkid12345

Same % as me. Missed a single DEN-ATL this year but otherwise all F.

Even got an F upgrade into the last empty F seat and now F is sold out...confused both me and the phone agent, but won't turn it down!

This was one of the few I missed last year. Turns out, I bought the time before many of the partner transpac flights leaving from SFO, thus DL had basically sold all the seats.

One anecdote doesn't doom a route for upgrades....

beachsideflier

interesting idea of going dual status. I live close to MCO and they have a lot of direct SWA flights, I could fly but I've always stayed loyal with Delta and often times route through ATL to get where I'm going (which I could have taken a direct on SWA). So I'm now considering I'll use SWA for any direct flights I can find, and use Delta for the rest, my status will probably drop down to GM but that will still provide Sky Priority boarding. I know with GM I'll probably never get a FC upgrade, but who cares at this point since my DM status is getting me fewer upgrades and I'd expect that as Delta refines the algorithms (to monetize FC) to where everyone is paying (miles or cash) for upgrades. The comp. upgrades inventory will dry up even more of the coming years.

TommyD2

I'm am about same as last year as a DM flying out of MKE.

For segments that should 'count' I have missed 3 of 31, so a bit better than 90%.

Not included in the above are 6 FCM segments, and 4 RUC segments.

Also not included are 2 segments traveling w/ a companion (only had C+)

ethernal

Man.. all this thread is telling me is how lucky other people are.

There was a stretch in January where I was getting lucky with battlefield upgrades (went to gate #1 of 0 and cleared due to a noshow) - but I haven't gotten a non-RUC F upgrade in the past 2.5 months. Spent yesterday in a middle exit row seat (woohoo).

WillBarrett_68

There were (and may still be) milage upgrade awards, but DL did not really advertise these and the inventory of these was pretty restricted, which certainly does not seem to be the case with upgrade with miles seats.