When does Delta offer realistic D1 monetization price?
 

Traveling BOS-LHR on flight 58 Wed in Comfort+. Only 10 of the 34 D1 seats show filled. Yes, I understand more seats might be sold, but I keep seeing the number go down. Yet Delta wants $3,200 to upgrade. 2 years ago, I received an offer at check-in for a D1 upgrade for $700. If the flight is this empty up front, should I expect the same at check in? Interesting times.

I highly doubt it. The lowest I’ve seen a delta 1 upgrade has been 898 RT and that was a year ago on JFK-ZRH. I’ve always seen the FCM offer go down sit there for a bit and then spike but it could just be the routes I’m taking as I try to watch them closely to snag a good offer but none have been during check in. On all the trans-Atlantic flights I have right now show it ranging from 999 to 1720.

Delta (at least pre-coronavirus) is very profitable and seems to be doing a very good job of pricing its premium cabins. As always with threads like this, the seat map is not an accurate measure of load, and one data point isn't a trend.

OP is most likely talking about a one-way offer of $700, not roundtrip. $700 for a roundtrip would indeed be quite unlikely.

That was 100% accurate and completely useless :-)

I have never seen a TATL flight this empty upfront 48 hours before departure. And we all know people are cancelling non essential business travel left and right - the folks who normally would be sitting in D1. Was wondering if anyone had a clue when and how regularly Delta might drop upgrade pricing when there seems to be a ton of inventory.

There is no history to be had here as COVID makes this uncharted territory.

DL could sell its D1 seats cheap or it could hold out to preserve the D1 brand.

Remember that DL did this with domestic upgrades in the last recession and it's digging its way out to this day. So don't count on DL opening up cheap upgrades, at least this early in the "crisis."

Well, for what it’s worth DL58 shows J9+ on 3/11 and 3 of the seats showing as reserved aren’t even filled, they’re just blocked. Pretty safe to say J is dead on the flight. Y and W both seem much busier though.

May be worth a call to DL to see if they are showing a seat upgrade price on their end.

My recent JFK-ZRH flight for April fluctuated between $899 and $1600, but it dropped under $800 this week. Was planning on upgrading at that price but decided to reschedule for November once we saw that Italy was under quarantine, as we were planning on spending half the trip in Milan and Como. Decided to spend our April vacation in St. Thomas and Puerto Rico instead!

what exactly does DL or customers think is the D1 brand? I’m not trying to be a smart (butt) here I’m really curious.

6.8.0

I doubt DL will discount too much in FCM/cheap J in order to preserve the "D1 premium." This might be a sweet spot for clearing a mileage UG - https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...-awards-5.html

1) COVID-19 seems to be the largest/fastest degradation to airline inventory in a long time. DL may not at this point been able to determine how to maximize their revenue.

2) Just because a premium cabin happens to (appear to) be severely undersold doesn't mean the airline is ready to dump upgrades on the cheap. If it becomes known that they're doing such in these dire times, then the very few folks who might pay a D1 fare are likely not to ... why would they if they know cheap upgrades are readily available. The airline has a delicate balance to play on "selling unsold seats/upgrades for whatever extra $$ they can get" versus protecting the revenue they can get (granted at this point, from a dwindling set of passengers) for their premium services. This point is true in current as well as 'normal' times. Back to point #1 , they probably haven't decided yet where to draw the line in today's unusual environment. Nobody here can answer your question.

3) You have no way of knowing what the actual booking levels are.
- You can look at tools like Expert Flyer which tell you how many seats (up to a max of 9 or 7 or 4) are available to sell at each fare level, but that's a far cry from how many seats have been sold. It does not reflect how much the airline has decided to oversell the fare. In these times of massive cancellations, I'd bet the "oversell factor" has been increased (based on the ongoing analysis of point #1 )
- Seat maps never directly show the number of seats sold. Use their displays as a tool as you wish, but they don't reflect the seats sold but not assigned (IE: tour groups, consolidator/bulk sales, non-USA sales [where "seat selection at purchase" isn't as common], etc.

Inside of 24 hours. 25 D1 seats left. Called in, 315,000 miles or $3,200 to upgrade one way. Insane. I'm standing here, holding out money, asking Delta to take it, and they don't want it :-)

You are just not holding out enough money. I commend Delta for holding on to their product integrity.

I got $799 on JFK-MAD last year and jumped on it.

I find it weird that JFK-LIS with 7 D1 seats available in two weeks is offering me a chance to buy up, but LIS-JFK with 17 available D1 is not.

As displayed below, you probably will not receive a good reply... it's just much easier to drop the BUZZWORD and let your imagination take over!