Delta One Upgrades?
 

Just curious... I'm Platinum on Delta and booked into Comfort + for a flight back to the States from London this Fri.... I think Comp upgrades are completely off the table right? Are there any tips/tricks to getting a Delta One upgrade (assuming there is space).... or is this a pure fantasy and a lost cause?

Thanks!

Mike

GUCs or OpUps are your only chance. Leave your D1 dreams for fantasy...and once in a blue moon, it may surprise you and come true

pgh234 is correct. OpUps used to be more common, but airlines in general, and DL in particular, have gotten VERY good at managing seat inventory and filling TATL flights just up to capacity but not over. For now, think of it like holding a winning lottery ticket - it does happen but not often and probably not to you.

Having said that, there are still factors that can increase your odds of getting a rare OpUp to/from London. Do not fly on routes like LHR-JFK or LHR-ATL where DL routinely completely sells the J cabin. Do fly on a route like LHR-MSP where there are lots of leisure pax (increasing the opportunities for an oversold flight). A few years back, as a PM, I got 5 OpUps in one year out of 10 TATL flights, all between MSP & LHR.

Delta also offers cash/miles upgrade offers sometimes, although they can be relatively steep ($800+ one way for example).

+1. Or check DL.com and see wait the FCM option is -- I've seen sub-$1000 on US-LHR and v.v. routes (lots of factors of course, I've also seen $3k+ FCMs).

Don't count on an OpUp -- assume you'll be flying in your ticketed cabin and if you hit the jackpot that's awesome (happened to me once 2 years ago on CDG - RDU) but if you assume an OpUp you'll be severely disappointed.

Don't know what flight you are on but would assume LHR - US on a Friday is going to be pretty packed too with Medallions. Business travelers who went to Europe for the week are going to be flying home on Thursday or Friday to get home before the weekend.

Mileage Upgrade Awards can also be useful (they pull from same inventory as GUCs), but they do not go to airport standby, so you will need it to clear ~3 hours before departure. Many cheap economy fare buckets are also not eligible.

I've been fairly good on getting op-ups in the last few years. While I just purchase D1 tickets for 50-60% of my international segments, I have been op-upped for probably 25% of my international flights where I was originally in the economy cabin. Last summer my wife and I both were upgraded LHR-PDX while traveling on award tickets.

My best story around this was that I had a contract with a non-profit organization in South Korea a couple of years ago and I was op-upped on 5 of 6 SEA-ICN-SEA segments in an 8 week period. I booked all my flights in economy to help their budget but I guess that was good karma.

Just to be clear for OP, OpUp's stand for operational upgrades (usually due to overselling coach). There's no complimentary upgrade program for international Delta One (or Premium Select) cabins and they will not upgrade Medallions simply because there are open seats.

https://www.delta.com/us/en/skymiles...llion-upgrades

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2f4a188bcf.png

Yes, thank you. Who here thinks the OP, who has 6 posts in ~2-3 months on FT, knows the meaning of GUC, OpUP, or FCM? (I'm surprised nobody mentioned MUA).
If you want to help, then help.

Shorter answer for the original poster - Upgrades to DeltaOne are essentially off the table unless you are willing to pay for them, either with Global Upgrade Certificates (GUC), Mileage Upgrade Awards (MUA), or a "First Class Management" (FCM) paid offer online or at check-in. Additionally, sometimes the airline will have to upgrade people if coach is oversold and there is space in business class, these are "Operational Upgrades" (OpUps). Never expect one of these. With FCM, the number of OpUps may have decreased as they've figured they can get someone to pay, say, $500-800 for what they'd otherwise have to give away for free.

I think one of the lightest loads I've ever seen in J in recent years was on a LHR-JFK flight 2 years ago, but it was a Saturday afternoon. So you can't really generalize. But I would assume that Friday would be fairly busy with business travelers.

It's pretty simple, really. You can write a post that's helpful for a newbie or you can write a post that's not very helpful for a newbie. :idea:

I have pretty good luck buying cheap upgrades to Biz Class when I'm flying on Delta marketed, KLM/Air France operated flights. I used to think this was something you could just do when checking in for a flight in Amsterdam and requesting a miles + $ upgrade. However, recently I have been able to select a business class seat when checking in for San Francisco to Amsterdam and Tahiti to LAX flights. The Flying Blue site offered me upgrades in the range of $700-$900 one-way. Combined with a c. $1000 round-trip Y ticket, this seemed like a great deal for business class.

I was able to do something similar when connecting to a Virgin Atlantic flight from London to JFK. (I opted for Premium economy for about $250 that time.)

Connecting out of Amsterdam, I used to get offers in the range of $400 and 30K miles. I'm having a hard time burning through my stash of miles, so this seemed like a great deal. It's been a few years since I have been able to take advantage of it and I hear that it no longer works for Delta operated flights, like it used to.

I agree with the spirit of this, but it's worth noting that the FT mobile website (for those who haven't been driven away from it by infinite scroll along other irritations) does not show profile info (or signatures but that's generally of no import)

Reminds me of Elon Musk's hatred of acronyms: https://gist.github.com/klaaspieter/...eae5cdd4ea1764 Acronyms rarely provide more benefit than downsides mostly because there's no control on who gets to make them and they just spiral out of control. While a lot of users here are flying experts and are very at home with these acronyms, there are obvious situations (like this one) in which there's a huge likelihood an OP might not know. It's not really hard to say "You can use a GUC (Global Upgrade Certificate)" if you're taking the time to respond to a post.