Old Fashioned International Mileage Upgrade vs the Seat Map upgrade
 

Just booked the four of us in PS to ICN next Oct 2024 on Delta. I want to use miles to upgrade- the Old Fashioned International Mileage Upgrade to Delta One- Not the Seat Map upgrade - I called and surprisedly the rep knew what I was talking about (I think) and said those are a complete different bucket of inventory- and that it probably won’t open until the summer. Has anyone had experience with these? I have co-workers who did this over the summer and their upgrades cleared really fast!!!
Thoughts? Ideas?

My wife and I did this for our trip to Spain this past October. Booked PS many many months in advance and asked rep at that time to see if they could find D1 availability using miles to upgrade. We were upgraded at booking to D1 for 40K miles per direction. So, for 160K SkyMiles, we flew D1 on a PS ticket price. Seemed pretty reasonable to us.

These don't exist anymore for flights to almost anywhere. Only the list below is now eligible for the old fashioned MUA. Reports of being used for other routes are likely tied to people who cleared the MUA before the new rules went in place on August 22

Due to my wife's health, I had to move away from a job with a travel budget.
That office still sends me on domestic trips and wants to send me to HEL in June 2025. I dropped from DM to PM and will not hit DM this year to secure GUCs for 2025.
Starting out of tiny CHA, the route out of ATL is either AMS or CDG. I fear the scenario of getting only economy fare from my office and having to pay with much cash or SMs due to my medical concerns (DVTs).
I know I could break the ticket in two parts and use tons of SM to secure D1 to either AMS or CDG if these routes have inventory as advanced booking rather than close to the day of departure. (No D1 and I will not travel.)
With DL cutting back on upgrade inventory, I wonder if there is any hope for these routes when buying as soon as the dates are open. I would at least attempt to argue that the office pay PS since I am investing so much in the trip.

If you can get your office to pay for PE and book an AF flight ATL-CDG, AF often sells relatively inexpensive upgrades to Business at the gate. They don’t often announce it, but you can ask the gate agent. The last time I did that it cost around $550 to upgrade from PE to Business; it’s more expensive to upgrade from regular economy. The drawback is you don’t know until flight time if the space is available. If there are not available seats in AF Business you are stuck in their uncomfortable PE seats.

There are $4655 roundtrip Z fares on CHA-HEL in June which is $935 more each-way than PS G fares on route should you choose to do an upfare from PS. You'd probably burn that amount of cash in the form of miles each way with MUA upgrades (no longer available on most DL metal, but partner metal is still an option). Unfortunately, availability in Z bucket on flights in June is, as they say, limited. If Biz class is that important, I wouldn't put my faith in FCM online seatmap upgrades (which are only offered on DL metal).

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...1d250578b2.png


YYZ-HEL is available from $2.8K USD RT in June on Skyteam if repositioning is an option.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f49c5d2fdf.png
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c1cf2111c6.png

AF’s newest PE seats are just fine and very comfortable. The original PE shell seats are no longer the only option.

Thanks to CarmenOM and xliioper for sage advice.
I will test my office about the PS fare for 6/25 because I just got notice this morning that I may need to go to GVA in 11/24 which recycles the same issues for me.
My office will not help with the GVA trip so there I need to start with an award ticket.

That’s good news!

If you are flying out on 6/25, there are actually suprisingly decent RT D1 fares out of ATL.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...143844f214.png

In my initial post I spelled out June 2025, but then used the misleading 6/25 in my response.
I am curious what an award ticket might look like for June 2025 - something like June 1 - 8, 2025. When I try comparable dates for 2024 it does not work out well even when I switch CHA for ATL.

Ah, sorry. Misinterpreted post. Difficult to know what fares will look like then. The schedule only extends out 330 days (Jan 19th, 2025 as of today) and a lot could change between now and July when schedule will start to open for June 2025.

There are currently discounted seasonal TATL Z fares out of ATL around US holidays like Easter, Memorial Day, July 4th, etc. (ZQN82SDD fares) with roundtrip fares in $3.8K range to HEL/CDG. Outbound must be from May 26th - May 29th and inbound from June 4th - 5th for 2024 to qualify for the dates around Memorial Day. The dates you are searching (June 1st - 8th), fall outside that window and thus do not qualify for those ZQN82SDD fares. Memorial Day in 2025 falls a day earlier than in 2024, so you can figure the window for those seasonal fares will also shift a day earlier for Memorial Day 2025 (assuming they return). Once again, June 1st - 8th flights will fall outside the window for the cheaper holiday seasonal fares for 2025.

While not finding any seasonal discounted D1 awards to go with seasonal discounted Z fares on ATL-HEL, you can see they exist on ATL-CDG below for 2024 (from 212.5K roundtrip with AMEX discount) for a limited number of days (there is currently availability for May 29th outbound and June 4th - 5th inbound flights). The seasonality requirements are the same as for the revenue seasonal Z fares, but there is only bucket availability (OZ) for awards for fligths with May 29th outbounds right now.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...77f4ad35c7.png

Very helpful. Thanks again for bringing clarity as I prepare a plan to get this ticket during July 2024.
Unfortunately, I have no control over the dates as this is a meeting of churches from around the world focused on "Pentecost Sunday" (6/8/25).

You can upgrade once OLCI opens. No need to wait till gate. Simply pick seat on seat mapcand AF/KL will tell you cost.