SuperG1955

According to the 'rules' you would have been behind all Earned DM's but ahead of all PM, GM and FO's. With a Y fare, likely at the top of the unearned DM's. I, and others, have seen lots of 5 day and other pre Gate UG's so it's likely that the Earned DM's were all upgraded before the Gate UG's.

I had a flight this week that had 12 out of 20 open n F at the 6 day mark and there were 3 given out at 5 days. At check in there were 2 available seats and it went to the gate with 2 available and 2 on the UG list, bot of whom cleared. The FCM price was ridiculously high.

MSPeconomist

It might help to know whether the flight was an elite heavy route and time.

I'm also starting to wonder, given that DL has been giving out some comped status, whether they are also giving out comped "earned" (rather than extended) status for those who were close to earning their status tier at the end of 2021. However, there wouldn't be much point to doing this if they don't announce the decision to the customer.

troyintn

I think the OPs point and question is DL IT really doing what was said and promised and I for one do not think they are. I have very little confidence in DL IT and trying to keep track of who did and did not earn status at the moment seems like a lot of work for them Especially as people are starting to earn 2023 status.

VFR

My reading of the Delta.com web page on upgrade order is that earned status trumps fare class groupings, e.g. an earned diamond on a V fare would be upgraded before an unearned diamond on a Y fare. This is entirely based on the asterisk being attached to the first tiebreaker, though I agree that another reading is possible.

Billy Mumphrey

As I posted, the route was SLC-ATL. Flight was on a Sunday afternoon. And any upgrade list with 85 names is obviously elite heavy. All I know from this experience is that there were 0 F seats a week out, and 0 seats when I checked several times from that point until boarding commenced. I was upgraded about 20 minutes before departure when 1 F passenger failed to check in. Is it possible some F seats suddenly opened up 3 days out and the earned DMs were immediately upgraded in advance? Sure. Or is it possible that there were no earned DMs among the 85 elites on the entire flight? Also possible. But IMO the most likely explanation is that the Y fare trumped earned status. I don't think that's the way it's supposed to work, but I honestly don't have much faith in Delta IT correctly managing a sub-tier of status.

xliioper

Seems like it would be relatively easy to do an experiment to test between an earned and unearned person at same level on same flight with different fares. You could try with award tickets and cancel and redeposit before flight. I'm an earned Plat.

aacar

Had the chance to test this today, traveling on the same flight as a family member (separate reservations).

Them: extended DM, 2MM, Reserve card, L fare booked 4 weeks out
Me: earned DM, Reserve card, V fare booked 1 week out

Neither of us were on corporate fares or earned the MQD waiver this year (the other tiebreakers).

I was higher on the UG list, so it seems the earned status priority is working as expected.

Repooc17

Side note, interesting you were able to book into V close-in, but your family member got the higher fare bucket despite advance purchase. Aircraft change resulting in additional capacity, maybe?

Orange County Commuter

Well you could do like the person I ran into a few years ago flying out of Minneapolis who as they got the plane stopped at the first few rows at first class to quiz everyone sitting there to make sure that we weren’t the reason he hadn’t gotten upgraded. He was stopped by the flight attendant but not before he asked the woman next to me how she got his upgrade and she looked at him and said “I’m old, I’m rich and I paid for the seat”. The rest of the first class burst out laughing and the flight attendant moved Mr DYKWIA along


so I guess what you could do is get on and ask everyone if they got upgraded because they were diamond and if they earned that status 😂

aacar

No, there was a schedule change on my original flight but I waited until my schedule was final before using the online system to make the change (it retained the original booking class despite V not being available on the new flight).