Online PM booking Question
 

I've made PM for the first time and am trying to figure out the online booking procedure.
How do I know if upgrades are available online before I book a flight? I check the box for 800 mile segment upgrades when I make my reservation and the web site will sell me tickets at that price regardless of the availablity of FC seats. I then have to go to the upgrade section to actually upgrade the seat. Is there a way around this? Wouldn't it make sense for the site to see that your a PM and just book you in FC when you ask for the 800 mile upgrade price? If there is no inventory, does the site let you know before the purchase is complete?
So far, I've made 2 RT bookings on the site since making PM and there has always been FC available. I'm just wondering how this works for down the road.

Go to itn.net and make sure there's availability in A for the flights you want. That is where the inventory for upgrades comes from on non-BE flights, I believe. For BizE, I think it's I. Anyone else want to confirm/disprove this?

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Time..... is on my side.

To answer the first question, there is no way to know in advance (using delta.com) whether or not the upgrade seats are available before you book. I think it's frustrating that this is the case, but it is. As PM you can generally assume that, if you're booking several days in advance or more, you'll clear the waitlist even if seats aren't available when you initially try to upgrade.

Domestic First Class upgrades are booked in V inventory (not A). I think it's pretty safe to say that if A seats (which are discounted first class seats available in certain markets) are available, then V seats probably are also -- but there's no guarantee of this and there is no way to see V seat inventories anywhere if you're more than 72 hours out from your flight. If you're within 72 hours, then your travel agent can access V inventory displays. I don't know of any website that can/will display V seat inventory -- although if some enterprising travel firm ever got its act together there is no reason it couldn't be displayed, since it is available the last 72 hours before a flight through all the major computer reservations systems that power travel agencies as well as online bookings.

One other thing along this topic: First Class upgrades using Systemwide Upgrades or miles are booked in G class. Seat inventories in this class can be viewed at any time by a travel agent (although not online anywhere that I'm aware of), and it is safe to say that if G seats are available, then V seats are also. I've never seen a situation where this wasn't the case, as the airline would prefer to upgrade a PM (to V) than a regular member (to G).

Thanks for clearing that up, Robert. I knew that points upgrades were done in V and SWUs in G, but have noticed that I get the upgrade when A is available and don't when it isn't. I probably don't have a large enough sample size to say whether there's a 100% correlation between the two. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

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Time..... is on my side.

Spiff,

I'm almost certain (just from anecdotal evidence) that for BE flights and BE US flights if ITN shows "I" class available, there are upgradeable seats available as well.

The I inventory is for some type of discounted business class seat (for which I have never seen a published fare). The upgrades into BusinessElite (international flights) using systemwides or miles are booked in Z class. For domestic upgrades into BusinessEliteUS using segment upgrades and the like, the inventory is X class. How well these correlate with I class I'm not sure but my intuition is that it probably correlates well domestically but not quite as well internationally.