Upgrade to F for 9,900 Miles?
 

Just getting back to flying after a year off for pandemic.

Booked LGA-MCO in June and saw that an upgrade to F was available for 9,900 miles each way, per person.

We have Gold status. I don't remember any upgrades in the past for that few miles. The flights are almost empty at this time.

Advice? Lock in the upgrade or wait and hope for a free one later?

Thanks!

The mileage price is just the cash price (less taxes) converted to miles at the rate of 1 CPM. You can generally get somewhat better value from miles than 1 CPM on award flights (typically 1.2 - 1.3 domestically). Although award flights don't earn MQMs which can also be a consideration if you care about MQMs. The nominal fare difference from cheapest main cabin in June ($103.40 TAVNA0MF T fare) and FC is $140 one-way ($243.40 TAUNA0FE Z fare). Although the difference can potentially be less depending on bucket availability. So the upgrade price is somewhat better than you would typically see at time of purchase (which is just the fare difference), but not spectacularly so.

How far out? Travel will continue to open back up as vaccination accelerates so if we're talking October/November maybe lock it in, if we're talking next week might be worth the gamble.

How empty is it in Y? Honestly based on the reports of DL F service (haven't flown since the pandemic started so just going by what is reported here) if you've got the whole row to yourself and not much risk of losing that, I don't think it's worth anything to move up to F.

So far, Delta hasn’t extended seat blocking out past April. It sounds like you are traveling with a companion? If they had extended seat blocking, I’d say roll the dice and be happy settle for a whole row to yourselves in C+ since service in F isn’t all that these days, but they haven’t indicated that they are extending blocking any further.

The June schedule has not yet been finalized, so your flights have a good chance of changing (including consolidation of flights, which might lead to the flight being more full).

My anecdotal experience has been that travel has been picking up, and with a third of adults having received their first dose of the vaccine, travel may be up further in June.

$90 worth of SkyPesos isn’t a bad price for that route, but since we don’t know what Delta First will look like in June, I wouldn’t pay for upgrades right now. OTOH, with devaluation, maybe it’s time to cash out!

Flight is in early June and the seat map shows almost a totally empty flight.

We have an abundance of SkyPesos which we will be burning as soon as we can. My guess is that the F upgrade will increase in price as the plane begins to fill.

It will either go up or disappear, so if you want to secure a seat in F, go for it. 9,900 for a 2hr flight is a great deal imho.