No availability to use Delta Global upgrades
 

I am looking to travel next Aug-Sept but can not find an international Delta flight where a GU to Delta one is available. Has Delta completely blocked GU from their booking systems?

Can you provide more information? Route? Dates?

No. Well, other than that, it is going to have to go to PS first.

Someone recently pointed out there's currently a bug with the GUC indicator for D1 cabin. If you search for PS or lower fares on a route, it will only show PS available with GUC option even when there is GUC availability for D1. This is likely what you are encountering. You have to specifically search for D1 fares on a route for it to show correctly as demonstrated below.

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GUC upgrades to D1 are based on Z revenue fare class availability now as discussed in this thread -- https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...2-changes.html
D1 fare classes are J/C/D/I/Z. Since it's a revenue fare class, it pretty straightfoward to figure out dates with availability using "Price Calendar" view on delta.com and Google Flights in US-EU direction simply based on flight prices. One-way Z fares on DTW-LHR route above are $3234 for Tue/Wed travel and $3484 for Thu-Mon travel (these requirements are specified in the Fare Rules found on delta.com). Based on this knowledge, I can tell that DTW-LHR flights on Aug 3 - 5, 9 - 11, 14 - 19, 22, and 28 all currently have D1 availability due to having Z class available. As far as September, only the flight on Sep 29th currently has availability. It's likely most EU routes will have better availability in August than September similar to DTW-LHR route. Finding flights with availability in reverse EU-US direction is a bit more involved since Z fares all require roundtrip bookings from EU direction. However, once you find outbound dates, you can switch to a roundtrip search using one of those dates for outbound and figure out return availability dates based on roundtrip pricing.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f1c62d2904.png

Have you clicked on the "Premium Select available with GUC"? Often, when you, do, you will find that in the breakdown it does actually show you that D1 is also available. IOW, don't get mislead by the header.


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e17e72fb98.jpg

I have experienced a similar issue finding global inventory. Just booked SEA-ICN in July. Even when searching with flexible dates I couldn't find any global upgrade inventory. (I ended up booking with miles for 110k!) Similar issue when searching Europe flights on a variety of routes.

I've even seen the global upgrade or any cert upgrade inventory not available on many domestic routes as well. Including DCA-LAX-DCA and flights with just first class cabins. Mostly looking at May-Aug flights.

I wonder if DL thinks they're going to sell a big chunk of their premium seats this summer and is heavily restricting certificate inventory.

As noted upthread, the GUC indicator currently has issues on flight listings. You have to actually click on the indicator as shown below, or search for D1 fares, to see "true" availability.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...a3c742d2a3.png
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...13515790fc.png


There is actually GUC availability on the DL SEA-ICN route for every single day in July except for July 11th. As noted above, it is now based on Z class inventory which is a revenue fare class and visible. As long as there are one-way Z fares on a route, you can tell if there is GUC availability simply based on pricing in Google Flights or delta.com "Price Calendar" views. Google Flights will work better in this instance as you can exclude the KE flights while DL price calendar view doesn't have a filter for this

DL one-way Z fares on SEA-ICN go for $3273 on Mon-Thu (fare basis code ZNX40NDD), and $3468 on Fri-Sun (fare basis code ZNW40NDD) as demonstrated below. The 3rd position of fare basis code distinguishes between mid-week and weekend fares. The definition of "mid-week" differs on TPAC vs. TATL fares (you have to actually read the fare rules to see exact days of week). These fares also have a 14 day advance purchase requirement (4th position of fare basis code). There are cheaper roundtrip Z fares on this route (starting at around $2600 each way) with a 7 day min stay requirement. I'm just using one-way searches to find flights with Z class availability.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...1a2c16380b.png
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c5f39fbde1.png
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...4a5dfe13f8.png



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https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...b93dd701b7.png
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...191bb2cc5b.png
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...adf6fe8fd3.png

There's no such thing as GUC inventory for domestic flights with first: if there's a seat, the GUC clears.

I should have clarified, I'm specifically referring to DCA-LAX-DCA, which I fly frequently. I've searched many dates this year and have yet to find GUC inventory.

Per DL.com

• Flights with Delta One without Delta Premium Select: If you purchase Delta Main or Delta Comfort and then apply your Upgrade Certificate (Global Upgrade Certificate for international Delta One, and Global or Regional Upgrade Certificate for domestic Delta One), you will be upgraded to Delta One, pending upgrade availability.

Again, this is fundamentally about revenue Z class inventory. It's not that they are specifically "targeting" cert use. They are just holding back Z bucket inventory on some routes as part of revenue maximization. While this is not true on SEA-ICN route (as demonstrated above), it does seem fairly common on a number of domestic D1 routes. You can see on DCA-LAX route they do at times release Z for close-in flights if they are not heavily booked.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ee9b0c9452.png
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...b04c03538a.png
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...eaf96ed164.png
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...fbffbba7db.png

I am confused about the upgrades to D1 being available when there is Z class inventory. What if there never is Z class available, but there are still plenty of open seats? Will they wait to upgrade to D1 within 24 hours, or leave those seats empty? I'm looking at flights that I purchased PS for, that have 25 seats open in D1. No doubt it will get fuller as time gets closer, however, I don't see many flights at all for that route that have Z class available. The route is SEA-AMS.

I also don't see any indication that I'm on the waitlist, though they claimed to have put me on there. Perhaps it's not something I can view. They also claimed that they put me on the waitlist for the second leg, AMS-NBO on KLM, and told me that I had to call Delta 24 hours before the flight to try to get upgraded on KLM. Is this accurate information that they gave me?

I wouldn't assume DL never opens Z on these flights. They might hold it back for flights further out, but I see quite a few flights with it open closer in. It's not unusual for them to hold back inventory on flights further out until they can better gauge demand on flights. SEA-AMS 50-day AP one-way Z fares go for $4140 - $4590 and 90-day AP Z fares go for $3640 - $3890 (there are no one-way Z fares with an AP of less than 50 days as shorter AP Z fares require roundtrip bookings to qualify for them). You either need an EF account or check using roundtrip fare searches to find flights with Z open closer-in than 50 days. As you can see from Google Flights pricing below, there are quite a few dates with Z bucket open on at least one of the two daily flights (when 50-day AP window opens in late May). At any rate, as I demonstrated a few posts upthread on the DTW-LHR route, it is possible for them to release upgrade inventory on a flight without there being Z bucket open.

You don't actually need an ExpertFlyer account to figure out the Z fare prices on a route. Just click on the cheaper fares showing on Google Flights to bring them up on delta.com and then check the booking class on them. The reason for the variability on the Z fare prices, in addition to different Z fares with different advance purchase requirements, is that there are slightly different fares for midweek travel (Tue-Wed) and other days of the week (Thu-Mon), as well as "High" and "Low" season fares ("H" and "L" in second position of fare basis codes). These are listed in the fare rules which can also be found on delta.com and don't require an ExpertFlyer account.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...3bca6e5f74.png
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f3baf9a3fd.png

Delta has gotten stingy about opening Z class even when they have plenty of seats seats and even when other airlines have low business fares available on the same routes. Often times from NY both AA and UA will be SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than DL because of that. Seems that Delta rather sell less full fare tickets and then if they still have capacity start selling upgrades to the bottom feeders waiting for "a deal." Suppose when you charge enough passengers 1.5x-2x what the other airlines charge you can then afford to give $899 upgrades to people who wouldn't have otherwise bought the seats.

In the past year I have flown UA & AA more times than I previously did in the last decade because of that.

However to what I think is your question -- you do not need Z inventory opened up within 24 hours in order to get a seat off the waitlist. In theory you should receive the seat if any seat remains -- but again, revenue management may lower that upgrade price to a point where there won't be any seats left when for you to get in the last 24 hours.

I don't risk it -- I will only use my GUCs where I can confirm to DL

no they didn't, because you cannot waitlist GUCs on KL.

I would call in to verify you're waitlisted on the first segment because it's extremely likely that whoever told you that screwed up

Thank you all for the information. That is very helpful! Seems like it’s well worth checking every now and then to see if those Z class fares are available on our booked flights, as it sounds like they might not bother to upgrade us unless I prompt them to. Then by the time 24 hours prior rolls around, they may have sold all the inventory for a cheap price.

i did find one day that had a Z fare from SEA-AMS, but when I changed it to SEA-AMS-NBO using the same SEA-AMS leg, the fare class changed for that flight. They sure don’t make it easy.