readywhenyouare

flyerCO

IT was early morning flight, and SEA-JFK had lie-flat. (It wasn't the daily D1 flight though) Made it much easier to go back to sleep, literally slept till landing at JFK.

Duke787

The same people complaining about lack of SDC are the ones who shout over and over WFBF.

If you want that specific flight, buy that specific flight, otherwise you take your chances.

SDC is a benefit pending space availability, not a guaranteed right.

"How dare DL not let me change to a different flight with better timing / better F seats / etc., for free, after I specifically chose a different flight when booking -- and then to top it all off DL proceeded to sell seats on the other flight to paying customers??? Ridiculous!"

Skystreak

I am currently on a trip I purchased 3 months ago. Delta has added connections that were not available at the time of my purchase and are cheaper than what I paid originally. It would be nice to be able to SDC to the new options but I'm not holding my breath.

DiverDave

I'm surprised you were allowed to make that change - I thought the D1 transcons are special and not eligible for SDC from a domestic F fare.....

FlyBitcoin

Actually, the SDC benefit encourages more WFBF behavior since it is unequivocally easiest to use when already in ticketed F cabin.
DL gets the front cabins filled faster and complimentary upgrades decrease.

Unless of course you translate WFBF to "WantFlightBuyFlight" pertaining to a specific departure time.

RealHJ

Yes.

I thought it's J ("Delta One") fare and wide-body aircraft specific, discrimination for buying higher class fares (where it's normally sold out not just days but weeks in advance, and often oversold, so even on a purchased high-fare J ticket, you will only get your seat - good chance it'll be a broken one - at the gate). But indeed it seems to be so for everyone in general, regardless or aircraft or fare. Such exceedingly high load factors are not good for pax.

SDC as it is now definitely discourages against buying F/J fares, as that is where it is the hardest and practically impossible to use it, due to small and consistently oversold cabins, and where upgraded pax take place that should be reserved for paying pax.

golfr

I usually book the cheapest and latest flight possible. One time I booked a earliest flight and tried to SDS/SDC, the agent berated me and told me how I'd have to pay $200 fee if I can't standby and have to take the next day's flight. The fee aside, I couldn't chance going the next day, so I just took the flight. I had successes prior to this experience in SDC'ing early flights to later ones. Now, I just book the latest. That way, I'm at least guaranteed to go that day, well unless they cancel that flight(this does happen). I can do standby if confirmation isn't available. Have not done FC shenanigans since I don't fly the lie-flat routes. I have noticed that the confirm options have been slim to none as of late. Still, it is one of the better benefits.

DTWflyer

I tend to have no issues with SDC on Tuesday & Wednesdays. Mon, Thu, & Fri the flights tend to be so full its almost impossible.

Zorak

Out of curiosity how much DL domestic flying are you doing these days to have these data points? Given your well-documented dislike of pretty much anything DL-related, I would have thought you avoid them as much as possible unless you have no other option.

Also curious what your rough estimate of "good chance" of a broken seat is -- 10%? 20%? 50%? And just to clarify, do you mean system-wide or just on the HNL routes?

So if I understand you correctly, you are saying:
- without easy SDC there's no reason to buy F/J fares
- DL's J cabins are small (compared to competition that does seem true) and consistently oversold -- I thought they avoided the heck out of overbooking J and usually only downgauges are where this happens
- yet somehow people are getting upgraded into J and preventing people from actually buying seats -- if this is happening AND J is routinely oversold then this would seem like a colossal revenue management failure, wouldn't you agree?

SamOF

SDC can be a much different benefit than first class. I may or may not want to pay for first, but I'd always rather have it, and there's no benefit in flexibility as to whether or not I sit in first class. In other words, me not buying it from the beginning is always because I'm cheap.

For SDC, the value for me is not booking a cheap flight and hoping to change to the one I really wanted to begin with. It's the flexibility to wake up, see how work goes that day or who I want to have lunch with where, and then change to a flight that makes sense.

I love that US airlines offer this benefit, and I think it actually makes a lot of market sense—these are changes that are absolutely not worth paying the change fee and fare difference for and involve little to no cost for the airline.

DiverDave

Well, yes and no. You may remember the old SDC policy which had no fare class restriction but was limited to a three hour window. Word was that revenue management was tired of watching their walk-up fare inventory on nearly full flights evaporate without any cost to the customer or revenue for Delta. So they went with the new policy which allows 24 hours, but restricts availability. So when RM thinks there will be some walkup demand, the seats will remain for sale and not be grabbed by a "gamer" on a cheap fare.

When the policy was changed to the 24 hour window, FC fares were similarly restricted initially. If you were on a cheap F fare and only full F was available, you could not make the change. This was the case at least for some time into 2012 as I encountered it returning from our Delta Seattle event that year. But it has since been eased, except it is still relatively common for agents to insist that you must have the fare class available.

Duke787

I'm not disputing it's a great perk -- but the OP was expressing displeasure that load factors are preventing the ability to SDC and my point is if you want / need the flexibility from the start the Delta offers flexible tickets that guarantee the benefit you describe but at a cost to hedge against the potential for you canceling too late for them to otherwise sell the seat.

If you don't choose the buy the flexibility up front, the perk is a great option when you can take advantage of it, but you can't complain about the airline conducting BAU (aka selling seats on their flights) and by extension missing out on the opportunity.

flyerCO

I think you may have misread my post. I stated that this wasn't the daily D1 flight. DL regularly flies the lie-flat 757 on SEA-JFK even when it's not the daily D1 flight. (Remember not all, only one or sometimes two daily SEA/JFK flights have D1, rest are domestic F)
They don't oversell F/D1. This is well documented. The only time recently D1 was oversold is when theres been a substitute between refurbished and unrefurbished 777. You can read the threads and see that your comment about discouraging F sales is plainly not true. Many times it's been commented that passenger bought F for SDC benefits. Also upgrades at window are becoming more rare. Lots going to the gate. As you can SDC if any seat is available theres no reason an upgrade should prevent you from SDC.

Zorak

While I basically agree with your second paragraph (and I am always willing to fly my tickets as purchased if SDC is not available because I know that's the tradeoff) I don't see how even buying flexible fares would help if the complaint is that there is no inventory to SDC into (OP was talking about lots of last minute B and M fares and some of the other responders are talking about F SDC where it should be last-seat availability)

i.e. the "you can buy that flexibility if you want it" would IMO be more of a response to a complaint about change/cancellation fees, not lack of SDC.