Rommie2k6

Has this happened to anyone recently? My C+ upgrades have always cleared at the time of booking.

Now, they're not, even if there is space. On routes between US and an EU location. Even called Delta and they said yeah I'm on the list, but there's no C+ space, even though there's C+ seats open. What am I Diamond for? To get this kind of crap from Delta?

dlflyer00

rucksack

Rommie2k6

This is not about upgrade eligibility, is about C+ not clearing at time of booking which is standard for Diamonds.

rucksack

Rommie2k6

I guess they are now... this is beyond ridiculous.

dlflyer00

rucksack

On the one hand, I wouldn't be surprised if Delta starting controlling C+ upgrade inventory. But I wouldn't rush to judgement here. As I mentioned, the seat map is not a reliable indicator of seats available as a number of customers may not have assigned seats. This is especially true for agency bookings.

Lux Flyer

C+ upgrades have been subject to fare bucket availability ever since DL made C+ it's own booking class, even for DMs/PMs. You need OU or RU availability to be automatically upgraded (sorry can't remember which is to FC vs. C+). Typically that is available at booking, but for whatever reason rev management may be holding back those seats from upgrade availability, maybe more have sold than they initially expected for this point in time and they expect to sell more, maybe the flight historically has more paid C+ so they don't want to give them away yet, or maybe their algorithm screwed up and 0'd those buckets. For whatever reason, the fare bucket required for ugprades doesn't have any complementary upgrades available at the time, and no matter how much you ask they can't upgrade you until RevMgmt releases availability into the C+ upgrade bucket.

rucksack

I knew that Delta had the technical capability to do this with the new fare system, but I hadn't seen anything but isolated cases of this happening, which could be chalked up to errors/glitches rather than a policy change. Albeit dated, but this came from a Delta employee when I raised this issue a few years ago:

sydneyracquelle

Lux Flyer

My experience last year was a couple flights I didn't clear at T-24 even though they were selling C+ seats. So they've definitely held back C+ upgrades, PMs/DMs probably don't notice since they do typically get them at booking, but rarely as your situation shows they could be holding back. My guess is there's something unique going on, like a group buying up a bunch of the seats early or more people purchasing them earlier than expected and DL thinks they can sell the rest still. I envision a scenario something like they expect they could sell 16 more seats between now and departure, but had an early run on people purchasing C+ seats so only have 10 left to sell, in that case it wouldn't make sense to give any of them away as upgrades until their future sales projections fall short.

Actually used to be the other way around. When C+ was it's own fare class in NA, but still an add-on seat purchase TATL, any medallion could choose them for free at booking. Once they finally made C+ it's own class for TATL (2-3 years ago?) they became upgrades handled like the rest of the system.

acrophobia

IluvSQ

Whatever happened to the rule that " If you want XXX class, pay for XXX class"?

TheStrongOne

Can't clear into a C+ seat if they have all been taken, right? Are you certain there was availability (not on seat map, but on the website for purchase).

Twice this month I cleared C+ immediately for PRG-JFK.