squirk

Spinning off some information shared with me in the Newbie thread -

When buying a cabin upgrade (in my case, C+ to D1) with cash, is there any way to protect yourself (e.g., trip insurance) from having to eat the upgrade fee if you wind up needing to change or cancel your flight?

In my case, I booked my DTW-AMS trip in Main Cabin with Miles, and then immediately got boosted to C+.

As usual, the site immediately tried to sell me upgrades to PS and D1. I normally never pay to upgrade, but was considering paying to bump up to D1 for this particular trip.

That is, until I was clued into the fact that if I did, and later had to cancel - or even just modify - my flight, there would be no refund of the fee (which didn’t surprise me), nor even an eCertificate credit for the fee (which *did* surprise me).

When I called Delta to confirm (which they did), they didn’t even try to sell me trip insurance. That led me to suspect that the insurance would not cover the upgrade fee.

At $975 per person each way ($3,900 RT for me and my son), that just seems like an enormous amount of risk.

I called AmEx (as I am a Delta Reserve AmEx card holder) and asked if I used the card to buy the upgrade, would the card’s trip insurance cover me in a case like this. They had no clue, and gave me a toll-free number to call.

But I thought I’d throw it out to ppl here who’ve been there and done that - is there any way to insure against this risk? Allianz? Any place else?

Please and thank you.

jjl468

Very curious about this as well. I bought an upgrade on a recent flight that got cancelled and was automatically rebooked on an itinerary that wasn't great. I found a better option in the app and chose that, but it gave me a warning that I would not be given a refund for my upgrade. I thought this was pretty absurd given that I was forced to give up my upgrade and the original flight they rebooked me on didn't have F availability either but I really wanted to get home earlier so I accepted it.

I'll be contacting Delta via the online refund request form and will hopefully be able to provide a data point soon for cases where the original itinerary was cancelled by Delta but seems like those have a month or two of delay.

MSPeconomist

If your original flight was cancelled by DL, this isn't a voluntary change. I would assume that DOT rules would force a refund if you traveled in coach on the new flight. However, additional rebooking would require you to purchase an upgrade again, at current prices for the new flight unless you get a sympathetic agent.

squirk

Good luck to you on that.

For my part, I’m not so much concerned about changes made by Delta (though your situation is an interesting wrinkle I hadn’t though of).

I’m more worried about changes made by me, because, y’know, life happens.

I guess I should just call Allianz and see if they have CFAR that would cover my situation. I’d been hoping someone here could share a solution and save me some grunt work.

ijgordon

I mean if you included the cost of the upgrade when pricing out the insurance policy, and you cancel your trip for a covered reason, there's no reason for the insurance to NOT cover any non-refundable arrangements. In fact, you would probably need to tell them that you got credit for the underlying ticket of $XXX but need to prove that the upgrade portion was completely lost (save the screen-cap from when you purchase the upgrade and when/if you cancel the reservation). The insurance actually WON'T reimburse you for anything the airline gives back to you.

The trip cancellation & interruption insurance included with an Amex card does not have cancel for any reason; it's a much narrower set of circumstances, so make sure you're covered by those or buy a separate CFAR policy, if available.

squirk

Thanks. Yeah, I was thinking that as well, but 1.) I have never bought trip insurance where an upgrade was in play, so I was trepidacious; and 2.) I didn’t know if the fact that the original ticket was purchased with miles would complicate anything.

Hopefully, Allianz can set me up. 👍

jjl468

Also, just in case you haven't done so already, be sure to compare upgrade prices to what prices would be if you modified your flight to take D1 instead. There certainly have been times for me where modifying my flight to get me into an upgraded cabin was cheaper than taking an upgrade offer, although they admittedly aren't common. This would allow you to upgrade while also not incurring any extra risk or needing to purchase insurance.

cfabar1

I am glad that Delta is selling the upgrades. I think it is a great way for them to boost their revenue and give the consumer meaningful choice in a variety of ways.

That said, the pricing structure is incredibly incredibly opaque. There are times you end up financially ahead by just clicking the modify flight button and modifying that ticket to a first class ticket instead of upgrading the seat, for example. Additionally, the non-refundable, non-changeable nature of the upgrade (while the underlying ticket still can continue to have value) is in my view problematic and very confusing for customers, especially if they don’t read the fine print.

I hope that Delta’s revenue management team will take a look at this, and find a way to be fairer and more reasonable (like automatically allowing people when they change the flight to have the upgrade fee returned as an E-Credit for example). Otherwise, I suspect at some point DOT or CFPB or some other governmental agency are going to get involved in this space.