dszrew

purchased a ticket main from SLC-AMS with premium select on the return using miles.
showed up at the airport today and was kicked back into main cabin. at the gate, the agent said "Oh, I upgraded you to C+", but told her I paid for PS. she said "can you prove it?" (went back and forth a few times like that until I pulled up my original ticket purchase.) finally she put us back in PS after seeing my verification and calling someone. however, we lost or original seats (window, aisle) and got aisle and a middle seat instead. lucky for us I guess there were still seats available and that we got the only 2 seats that were together.
at one point the agent (KLM I'm guessing) said "you can call Delta to complain." was another person next to me that had used an upgrade certificate for PS but was booted out as well, not sure if he ever got in (I suspect not as he may not have been able to produce proof).
Delta compensated us 10k miles each, and thought perhaps if this were an upgraded seat it might have been reset when the flight schedule changed by a few minutes (take away your upgrades and make you qualify for them again). In our case we paid the miles and it wasn't an upgrade so shouldn't have happened, but did. while this was happening the app would not work at all, but the website would show our original seats, not the main cabin seats nor the new PS seats. wish there were a way to catch this sooner and keep the seats I booked several months ago when the plane was practically empty.

Goodoldflyer

Interesting story. Good thing you had proof of your seats. Was it the same type of plane?

Glad you got the PS seats, and they were together.

Gertjaars

Curious how much did you pay, and did you feel it was worth it?

I paid $249 to upgrade to Y to PS on a afternoon flight BCN-JFK. Was not worth it at all.

dszrew

the plane hadn't changed. that was my first thought when our seats showed in row 34 instead of 21. flight schedule changed just by a few minutes which might have been the trigger.
my wife confirmed the other guy didn't make it into PS. He told the gate agent he did an upgrade last night on the phone. also asked the flight attendant if he could move but she said that should have been resolved by the gate agent.
there were several empty seats, but all were one seat open in a row. the entire back row was open when we were put into it so we got the last 2 seats that were together.

dszrew

delta wanted $499 per person each way or 49,000 miles to upgrade. however, we booked directly into PS instead for 16,000 each. it was worth it, mostly. definitely more comfortable than C+. I don't think it was worth $499, although I might do $249 in the future. it's hard to pay that much to upgrade when the seats are "free" with miles or when the upgrade is more than 50% of the original Main cabin ticket cost.

Goodoldflyer

What did you think of the back row?

dszrew

there was a gap between the seats and the bulkhead so they reclined as much as normal. bathrooms were back quite a bit further so no traffic or people standing. not entirely sure if the seats on the side reclined as much or if they were offset a bit further back.

AviationFreak

I wonder if this has something to do with reservations being transferred to KLM about 48 hours before departure from AMS. I’ve had so many issues dealing with KLM agents on DL operated flights from AMS, including not getting boarding passes, seat changes, not having a ticket associated with a flight, etc.

dszrew

that may be the most likely. as this was purchased with miles, the transfer might miss that the seats were NOT an upgrade. fortunately it worked out well enough, just really odd and a hassle I'd think shouldn't occur at all.

Goodoldflyer

The reason I'm asking is because I just booked PS in an empty cabin. Right now I'm in the bulkhead row, but I was there once before, and the folks behind me seem to struggle getting in and out, even when I wasn't reclined.

dszrew

my wife had trouble getting out with the seat in front of her reclined. normally she would pull up the aisle armrest and just stand up, but it was an odd angle and a bit hard to stand up straight and with the fixed armrests.

Goodoldflyer

Yes, I like the seats, but getting in and out of that window seat is a job for Tom Cruise in his Mission Impossible condition.

bennos

I'm confused, what PS configuration has a middle and window next to each other? Did you mean you got an aisle and middle together?

dszrew

yes, aisle and middle seat