No more C+ at booking ?
 

An odd one today - Booked a flight today for myself and spouse, several weeks out, C+ cabin half full (EF shows mostly 9s for most classes including W9). Usually, the C+ upgrade happens "instantly" after booking on the DL website. Today, nothing. Toggled upgrade request off/on. Still nothing.

Called. Agent tried to make the upgrade happen, says "that's odd, let me talk to a supervisor".

After maybe 10 minutes on hold, agent comes back. "RM has a new program they just started, let me read the memo."

Apparently the C+ upgrade might happen in a day or two. Or, perhaps not.

Anybody else experience this?

booked SEA-PEK yesterday for Jan departure, got C+ no problem immediately after booking...

Hopefully a glitch of some sort.

C+ at booking is the best PM perk in my book -- without it, wouldn't be worth pushing for PM if not achieving organically

If you log in and do a dummy booking, you should be able to see both FC and C+ showing as upgrade eligible or upgrade available, probably in a box when you click on something like upgrade availability on the flight search results page.

However, it is true that RM determines availability in the upgrade inventory buckets and this has been true since C+ became a separate booking/fare class rather than being just special seats that some people had to pay to reserve. OTOH, DL has generally been generous in making C+ "upgrades" available, but it's not surprising that DL might try to sell these fares if possible.

PM/DM are eligible for instant upgrade to C+ where space available. This means C+ upgrade inventory. If for some reason the RM computer decided no more C+ upgrades, or glitched for a minute/hour/day then you wait. This happens to me too occasionally.

Hopefully not a glitch. It would be fantastic of C+ was inventory controlled. The current model really hurts people who would be willing to pay for C+ and can't get it and Diamonds who book less than 3-4 weeks away from departure. Obviously it would just be a band-aid for not having enough C+ seats on many configs (I'm looking at you 739) - but it would be a welcome band-aid none-the-less.

I would also appreciate some modest inventory control on C+. Current model also hurts the usefulness of C+ SDC rules, since C+ is often W0 24 hours out. There was a period of time I paid for C+ as a PM/DM solely for the SDC benefit, but I quickly realized there was no practical benefit. Don't get me wrong, C+ at booking is a much appreciated feature and should continue with some modest inventory control.

"Often W0 24 hour out" is the understatement of the year. The issue is that C+ is W0 3-4 weeks out. For all intents and purposes, C+ does not exist on the routes I fly except for gate upgrades for the two seats blocked for gate assignment.

Just booked a flight yesterday MKE-ATL-VCE in main cabin for May and was immediately put into Comfort +.

The C+ upgrade happened at almost exactly 24 hours after booking.

Perhaps the RM idea was to encourage me to consider the "attractive" FCM offer ... before granting the C+ upgrade. The agent did mention "check back in 24 hours ...". Hmmm...

I’ve never had this happen. As meager as delta status is nowadays , someone wrote a thread about what straw would break the camels back and this would be it for me.

I had the impression that my experience was a "pilot" for a broader rollout of a 24 hour delay in medallion C+ upgrade at booking.

I've been burned by C+ being full for last-minute bookings as well. But, I wouldn't really want RM to manage SU like they do for OU.

Perhaps if it was something predictable/standard - like SU at booking is available for all PM/DM right away, up until there are only 4 C+ seats left, at which point only DM can get them before the gate. That would at least preserve a couple for late-booking DMs (and yes, I would probably lose out when I go back to PM next year), but it'd be something.

Of course, those last 4 seats will probably be all middles.... :)

Sorry, but this doesn't really make any sense. Either there is SU bucket inventory (in which case the upgrade should go through immediately) or not. How would they withhold upgrades on a per flyer basis independently of bucket inventory? Did the agent actually read the memo to you or just summarize it to you? Perhaps there was a delay in ticketing which delayed your upgrade?

The agent of course said nothing (beyond "check again tomorrow") but I can easily imagine how this sort of change could be imemented. Assume SU is available. Remember there is automation that already distinguishing between different levels of Medallion with different eligibility to upgrade criteria based on time. What if they just additionally look at ticket date, and then say "no SU upgrade until 24 hours after ticket issue" - in order to give said Medallion time to fully consider how desirable the given FCM offer might be. Just a theory...