MartinG

Don't belive them - it doesn't happen, book a refundable fare and if it doesn't clear the day before cancel and get a refund.

Staff and non-revs absolutely come first, they clear their non-revs before anyone else, so heed my recommendation.

My recent exprience with a death in the family didn't count at all. I wrote to Gerald Grinstein, the reply amounted to little more than lip service. I am / was almost a million miler with them before this with 7 years of loyalty - this counts as nothing.

I tried to buy the 1 last 'J' class before but the gate would not assign a seat. On the flight I found out there were 5 non revs in BE.

So, I converted my miles to Vigin Atlantic Upper Class - no comparison to the poor (at best) service with Delta. If you have American Express miles, use them with Virgin. You can also buy miles at 2.5c meaning an Upper Class ticket can cost $2350 to Europe and $2500 to Asia.

You can also buy miles for use with upgrade and Virgin will let hold the booking while you transfer miles.

Tell Delta you have had enough.

MartinG

BTW - I was so annoyed they have lost $20k's worth of business since June

jjglaze77

Wow! Welcome to FT, first of all... and my what a rant that was!


Although I certainly understand the frustration, this policy is published on delta.com, as well as widely debated here on FT. We all know this policy is bogus, but it is the policy Delta has chosen to adopt, like it or not, when you purchased a ticket with them, this was part of the agreement. Sorry you found out the hard way! Perhaps this will change with the news from Jerry that is due in less than 12 hours.

OrlandoFlyer

Delta's BE award to Europe from North America is 90K (if you can get it) and VS from the east coast of North America is only 80K. Similarly coach is 50K miles and 40K miles respectively.

You cannot check DL's int'l award availability on-line on the website, but you can check VS on the VS website.

VS have a miles+money special on their website for Frequent flyers (coach only) which is only 5K miles plus a fixed fare (capacity controllled) which varies from city to city in North America and time of year, is some cases amounts to about a 50% discount. Delta do not.

VS inflight service is pretty good. DL's at best is poor.

And so on and on.

Living in Orlando, we use VS now as our preferred carrier to the UK and Euorope rather than DL anymore. I quit playing the upgrade lottery on DL Int'l flights years ago as they are in general not good odds. Shame as this is yet another way DL choses to lose customers and revenue.

Spiff

^ ^

Good job voting with your wallet over this disgraceful policy!

wschild

Good for you! I fully support you dumping Delta International because of this policy. It is a crazy policy, United, AA and most other airlines clear their upgrades before non-revs. Delta won't clear you at the gate! Crazy. I used to pay a lot of extra for M+ fares to upgrade, and then not be cleared. I even saw empty B/E seats with PMs in coach after having paid for the higher upgradable fare and a UPG cert in hand!

I've taken most my international travel to AA, but did fly Virgin from LAX-LHR via CO codeshare! This was an amazing experience. Go for Virgin. Buy the CO code-share and get CO elite miles like we did.

Robert Leach

As a former Delta customer who defected to AA for 2004, I can tell you that, while it is possible to get an AA international upgrade on the day of departure, it certainly isn't easy. So, in the interest of full disclosure, I have to clarify the procedure a bit.

Unlike Delta, the problem is not because they won't clear the seat; they will if inventory is available on day of departure. Rather, it's because AA's system for processing any mileage redemption is sooooo cumbersome that getting the transaction completed AFTER you clear into the seat is really difficult, and even more frustrating is that if you ask 10 AA employees about whether it can be done, and if so how to do it, you'll get 10 different answers.

With AA, if you don't clear the waitlist for an international upgrade prior to the day of departure, you have to get somebody, somewhere at the airport to call the AA inventory control people and free up the seat for you. They will do it if seats are available, but somebody from the airport has to call them. When I went through this a couple of months ago, I got widely varying responses from AA res agents about who at the airport should call. The consensus was that it had to be somebody at the checkin counter (not the gate and not the Admirals Club), but I will tell you that at ATL you should do it at the Admirals Club, as they are the only people the least bit familiar with the process.

Once somebody from the AA airport staff calls inventory control and gets the seat released, they then have to call AAdvantage Customer Service and get the miles deducted and a certificate issued to append to the record to document that the upgrade has been paid for with miles.

So, first it's a call to the inventory people. Then, it's a call to AAdvantage Customer Service. The AA person then has to spend several minutes typing all this into some sort of template before a boarding pass can actually be issued.

And, based on everybody I asked, none of this transaction can be done at the gate. It has to be done before you reach the gate.

So, while you can upgrade same day from a waitlist status on AA international flights (which is a very good thing relative to Delta), to the newbie you have to work really hard at doing so.

If ever AA could marry it's generally positive approach toward frequent flyers with Delta's vastly superior automation (where any agent can, if they're willing, deduct any amount of miles from a frequent flyer account without ever having to get on a telephone), you would have a real winner.

Deltahater

Are you sure about this? IME, nonrevs always come last. Maybe there were other factors as to why the pax did not get the upgrade. As you can tell by my name, I am not a DL supporter, but I am 99.9% certain that that is the policy.

Next you have that experience (should you ever fly DL again), PM me and I can look into that flight and we can discuss this further.

But, I agree, it is a crappy policy and other carriers, European, Asian and American beat DL hands down on TA service.

And I totally support anybody who votes with his wallet

Spiff

DL only allots so many seats for upgrades on each flight.

DL will let the seats fly empty or with non-revs in them rather than exceed this pre-alloted number, even if the passenger is on an eligible fare and is willing to pay the appropriate currency.

RSSrsvp

Their policy simply makes no sense and even Rob Borden (R.I.P.) agreed that it needed to be changed when he met with "The Gang of Four". Considering that he was responsible for the recent demise of the FF program and also the 1/2 MQM system, it speaks wonders that he was in favor of day of departure international upgrades. Therefore I submit to the board my theory that this rigid stance regarding international upgrades is because it is deep rooted in DL's corporate culture from many years ago and they are simply brainwashed on this issue. If you are brought up to only drink water using a cup and not a glass, you would resist ever using a glass.

Hopefully the DL lurkers that read this board will also listen as this is one of everyone's pet peeves. Also bear in mind that most of us would even be happy to be able to upgrade the (overpriced) Y,M & B fares on the day of departure at this point as opposed to AA's practice of allowing any fare this opportunity.

RobertS975

Hey, speak for yourself. I personally believe that regardless of the fare paid, elites should be in the front if the seats are available! Just like domestic.

I would only buy a YBM fare if I could upgrade at the time of purchase!

RunawayNFly

I agree with you 100%. I don't understand why international upgrades should be treated any differently than domestic upgrades, especially for PM.

Spiff

You guys are preaching to the choir here.

That's one reason this former-PM jumped ship to AA a few years ago.

indufan

I will disagree. I think it ought to take a higher fare to upgrade, maybe not M but at least K to offset the high number of people that would be requesting those upgrades. Plus, it puts more money in Delta's pocket. Now, I know that has to offset people like Spiff that won't play their game. However, though I am not speaking for him, I don't think that isn't the only reason Spiff Delta.

Now, not upgrading on the day of the flight, that is just silly.

akhullar

You don't I have nearly always upgraded on the spot for all internationals while buying YBM fare. Only on one occasion my return was waitlisted - Since the flight date was a month away;it too cleared withink a few days. [I however do use CTOs rather liberally since they are a few blocks away]