Is DM really this useless?
 

I recently moved from DC where I was United 1k flying out of IAD to SLC. I switched to Delta because there's not really any other option for direct flights here. I just earned DM and was hoping to get upgraded, but I just closed out the SLC to MSP flight on a Thursday afternoon at 11/43 on the upgrade list. I also can't find any flights that will honor my GUCs from SLC to anywhere in Europe, and my RUCs are completely useless as well. Is anyone else finding Delta status completely useless?

If you care upgrades, wrong program. DL has no interest in giving away upgrades and looks for every opportunity to sell the seats.

Edit-I havent found status useful in a decade when I was able to start paying for F/J. Tolerable is about the only word I can come up with to describe US airlines. 15 years ago DL upgrades were a thing worth chasing, not so much anymore.

Far from useless, just have to be open to a little more creative routes

You always get C+ at booking if space is available. Don’t count on FC upgrades. RUC/GUC are great if you can book in advance. GUC can also be used for any transcon FC seat no matter the fare bucket. You can also nominate any 2 people for GM.

You were flying a hub to hub route, upgrades will be hard to come by. Flying ATL to spoke cities, I've been upgraded many times the past year or two as a silver.

I'm finding it hard to believe that IAD-ORD or IAD-IAH were handing out upgrades to you on UA.

There are approximately 4 billion DMs.

FWIW, I’m flying TYS-ATL today ~30 min flight time. I was offered a $450 FCM at check in. And I’m 4/28 for one seat. I was watching the flight for a few days and there were maybe 3 seats open a week ago.

Which tells me that there are plenty of people paying for F. Maybe these folks are going to Europe out of ATL. Maybe there are a bunch of rich people/folks flying on OPM flying domestic F.

There are also at least 4 DM on my flight (me plus everyone above me).

As DLATL777 notes above, the upgrades at all the airlines have dropped off over the past 10-20+ years. I used to be upgraded regularly on US between PIT and SEA as a silver equivalent back in the 1990s. But between then and now, how may airlines have been forced into merger or bankruptcy? And in the same interval, F seats have gone from being ~3x+ coach to frequently only 25-50% more.

I've used GUCs a number of times in recent years and haven't had significant issues. DL switched to using Z class inventory for GUC upgrades a few years ago which is a revenue booking class and not a hidden upgrade class. There are a number of ways to find flights with Z bucket inventory open. You do have to book into a PS fare now (award or revenue) to upgrade directly on DL flights. But KLM flights still allow you to upgrade directly from coach fares. While you can use a paid service like ExpertFlyer to find flights with Z class open, there are also some free tools like ITA Matrix and Google Flights that can be useful (you can't directly search for Z class inventory on them, but you can basically use them to search for flights with revenue Z fares for sale).

One simple way to search is with Google Flights in calendar view. Looking at SLC-AMS route as an example, one-way Z fares go for $4K and under (after selecting a few flights and looking at fare class). So you can just look for dates on Google Flights which are showing a price of $4K or under which means there must be at least one flight with Z class inventory open. These Z fares do have a 50 day advance purchase requirement, so this technique will work as long as flights are more than 50 days out.

The reverse direction is a bit more involved since all Z fares in EU-US direction require a roundtrip booking from the US. But once you know dates with Z bucket open on outbound, you can use a roundtrip search on Google Flights and look at total price to find dates with Z bucket open on return. You can see from below that Sunday flights and mid-week flights frequently have Z bucket open. While dates with flights with Z inventory open is relatively tight in May, there are quite a few dates in June with availability (20 out of 30 days).

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9d70dd38f2.png
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a2337d27ed.png
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e180d45463.png
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...726b3a3f7d.png

First-year DM here. I cleared all 4 of my GUCs on transatlantic flights this year. All of my RUCs had me sitting in D1 on LAX-JFK transcons. I feel as if I’ve extracted maximum value from my certificates this year. YMMV.

FWIW, I dropped down to Silver this year based out of SLC and I've still been upgraded every few trips. As long as you avoid the main connecting banks, you can have good success. SLC-RDU/EWR/PDX/BUR/SJC have all been good bets if you take the first or last flight out.

Interesting that SLC-RDU gets you upgraded as a Silver - on the 1x day NS, right? As a former DM, now 2MM PM RDU-ATL-RDU upgrades are hard to come by.

Upgrade certificates in particular are far, far, far easier to clear on Delta than they are on United. You can roll back the clock about 20 years on finding upgrade space on UA to get to the current state of affairs with DL. I can't promise everyone will find them useful - if you only travel on Delta monopoly routes at peak times and regularly pay for expensive fares (as seems disproportionately common for DL elites) then you're not as likely to see anything. But specifically compared to the equivalent benefits on other carriers, I think DL is by far the easiest to be upgraded.

I also can't say I have noticed anything that far off about complimentary upgrades. It's fairly easy to clear one that I plan for, but of course most domestic flights you have to pay for F. As when I was UA 1K, I clear nearly all the complimentary upgrades that I attempt, but only try it maybe 15% of the time. It's the same everywhere; the majors are actually trying to price domestic F competitively rather than sell four seats for thousands of dollars and hand the rest to elites.

Yes, creative routes and not overcrowded flight times do the trick.

Surprisingly, as a platinum medallion with AmEx reserve I got FC upgrades on 7 out of the 8 recent flight segments

basically the people who complain about them are almost always "well I am flying on DL123 in three days and I CANT FIND ANY INVENTORY THIS IS AN OUTRAGE"

Most anyone pursuing status for complimentary upgrades is playing a fool's game. Status is now about making the Y experience more bearable and comp upgrades really need to be looked as an bonus, not an expectation.. Sure there are unicorn routes, but if you care about F/J, you need to be prepared to buy it outright, as Delta has stated openly that its goal is to SELL a very high number of its premium cabin seats, not give them away. DL has also shifted the game to drive you to buy higher fares to have a chance at the few remaining upgrades. OP may have been as far down the list as he/she was because after status as well as being after anyone using RUCs, which is a possibility for a more longish domestic route like IAD-SLC, DL prioritizes the cabin purchased and then MM status, so any DM who bought C+ outright would be above any DM who bought Main Cabin and many DMs are MMers. Also, DL extends the priority of the Medallion to the companion rather than putting those with companions at the bottom of the list so yes, it's not hard to believe OP, even as a DM could be down at #11 on the UG list when all of those things are factored in.