jaimemayo

rucksack

I haven't seen any definitive answers on upgrade priority for instrument supported upgrades (miles or certificates). It could be as simple as time of request, or like complimentary upgrades, it could involve factors like status and fare class. In other threads, people have reported being told by agents that GUCs have priority over milage upgrades, but this is only anecdotal and hasn't ever been proven.

A number of people here have stated that the inventory for milage upgrades and certificate upgrades are the same because they both book into OY (business) or RY (first), but I'd point out that there are other cases where Delta uses a single fare class to represent multiple underlying buckets of inventory, namely award tickets.

flyerCO

Certificates are supposed to have priority over mileage upgrades.

Robert Leach

For upgrades, the inventory is the same when using an instrument to upgrade, whether miles or certificates. Theoretically, the certificate-based upgrades clear before miles in the event of a waitlist, but proving this would be almost impossible. Would a DM using miles be behind a GM using a leftover GUC from his/her DM year? I don't know. I suspect that a current-status DM using a GUC would be ahead of any mileage-upgrader.

My personal opinion is that there should be two inventory buckets: one for those using miles and one for those using upgrade certificates like RUCs or GUCs. That they are pulled from the same bucket rather than separate buckets is one of the reasons (IMO) why it is so hard to find upgrade inventory in advance. I think that those using GUCs would typically tend to book later than those using miles, so the carrier would tend to avoid allocating a lot of upgrade inventory early in the process, lest they all be snapped up by mileage upgraders 9 months out.

flyerCO

The problem with different buckets is you end up having the miles bucket given 1 but not GUC. This has been an issue with RUC vs free medallion upgrades. One bucket negates this issue. DL states UCs have priority. Absent proof otherwise (which we'd likely have heard about on here) have to assume that's how it goes.

rucksack

Let me caveat this by saying that there are countless examples of inexplicable upgrade priority and it would be a fool's errand to try to extrapolate one-off occurrences. That said, when I applied a GUC to a ticket I bought well in advance while still a DM, I ended up at the very top of the upgrade list (which had several other names on it) despite having dropped down to PM by then. I consider the possibility that priority for GUCs might be as simple as time of request, but an earlier occurrence gave me another possibility. I flew on a domestic flight shortly after I dropped down from DM to PM and yet I was near the very top of the rather sizable complimentary upgrade list, on an award ticket no less. It made me wonder if perhaps upgrade priority is sometimes based on your status at time of request rather than time of flight. Seems unlikely, but possible, given the job/batch mentality of a lot of Delta's IT systems.

I see your point, but would be worried that this would have the opposite effect. Since miles don't expire and have value for other things (award flights, drinks in the SkyClub, etc.), Delta should much prefer someone to burn miles on an upgrade rather than use a certificate. Having different inventory for milage vs. certificate upgrades provides Delta with a mechanism to differentiate between the two and could result in upgrade inventory for GUCs becoming even more scarce. You can make the argument that Delta wants elites to be able to use GUCs to reward loyalty, but that hasn't prevented them from making other changes that aren't friendly to elites.

danielvdm

Sorry if I'm missing something obvious, but how do you pay 45k miles to get placed on the upgrade list for that flight? Flying DTW - NRT in September, D1 is wide open but just see the typical $3000/300k miles offer.

EDIT: My guess this was a MUA earlier in the year?

ijgordon

You call and request a mileage upgrade award; they still offer them outside of North America I believe.

But 45k each way plus a potentially large fare difference to an upgradeable fare?
(Vs., say 25k+$300 on lowest fare on AA)

dlflyer00

jaimemayo

rucksack

Milage Upgrade Award (Read more: Delta, The Points Guy)

This is unfortunately common with GUCs. I still don't understand why this is such a frequent issue.

ijgordon

I suspect that's the exception more than the rule, but isn't the mileage requirement scaled by class (or class groupings) too, so if it's 45k for M class, how many miles was it for K? And if the upgrade was available at booking, maybe it's okay, but nobody in their right mind would buy up to a higher fare class just to waitlist an upgrade!

JakeRobertson212

Is there a way you can tell on dl.com whether your waitlist has been set-up incorrectly? I ask because I'm waitlisted on JFK-SFO-JFK next month using a RUC. On the outbound JFK-SFO when I open the seat map I can see all the D1 cabin seats that are available and those that are occupied. I also get a buy-up offer on that flight. However, the return SFO-JFK when I open the seat map all of D1 is greyed out and there's no buy-up offer even though when doing a dummy booking all D1 seats are still open. Is there something wrong with the waitlist on the return?

MSPeconomist

flyerCO

You've likely cleared on return, but ticket hasn't been reissued. Call now to get it done and you'll be able to select a seat.