FC empty, no upgrades cleared yet?
 

I am checking an upcoming flight on an MD-88. FC is showing completely empty, yet my upgrade did not clear after the 72 hour mark as a GM. When I called, they said there are none available yet? What gives?

Sometimes this happens when they plan to change aircraft, including possibly to a shuttle aircraft, and/or a VIP is going to be onboard, where all FC seats are held until the last minute. I find that in this case, you stand a better than average chance of being upgraded. Good luck!

They also might be holding them for the chance of selling them at the last min. I was on a flight yesterday with 14 FC seats open at the 72hr window and nothing happend, at the gate 71hrs later they cleared me and everyone on the list and the plane still went out with 3 empty FC seats.

Does this mean that you were on the "prioritized by fare paid" list instead of the "prioritized by status" list, and you were lucky there weren't more Y fares trying to upgrade?

I really do not know, when I left dulles I was in coach (K) on the connecting flight and when I got there my UG had cleared from the waitlist, I do not know how high I was on it.

Is it showing empty by seat map or by availability tool?

There have been reports of no automatic seat assignments but upgrades processed. You might want to double-check.

This is what has happen to me every time.

I need some help here. How do you find out how many First Class seats are available on a flight without being booked in First?

It is hard to find out exactly how many seats are truly available.

One rough guide used to be to look at the seat map and see how many unoccupied seats there were, but bear in mind that not everyone with a confirmed first class reservation (whether upgraded or purchased full fare) has a seat assignment yet -- and since the new upgrade routine went into effect, this is an even more common situation. So, just because there are empty seats on a seat map does not mean that there are that many available first class seats.

The second method is to look at an inventory availability display, which can be done using the expert mode at itn.net. It will show how many seats remain available to sell in any given inventory bucket, but it won't show any more than 9. Therefore, if there are more than 9 seats available you won't know it. For example, if it's a 22 seat first class cabin and only five reservations exists, there are 17 seats available but the display will still only show F9 (meaning, nine seats available in F). Now, if there are less than 9 seats left to sell, then this becomes a very accurate tool. If it says F6, then you know there are only six first class seats remaining, regardless of what any seat map says.

This happens to me whenever I travel now. Every time I've called to check on this, the agent just tells me that I am on the waitlist and basically they are holding these seats to see if there is a possibility that they could sell them before they allow you to claim them...so much for those 72...24 hour windows for upgrades.

Another thing you may want to check is to see how full/empty coach is...if it looks like coach is already oversold, then it is guaranteed that they are waiting to see if they can sell these FC seats before giving them away for free.

If a PM on a K+ is waitlisted, does that mean that a Silver on a Y fare will trump the PM for the FC seat?

That would make PM essentially worthless.

Yes the SM would win out. And I kinda think he should being he's paying full fare and not a discount. You guys just want delta to give it all away to you don't you?

This has been an ongoing problem since the inception of Auto -Upgrades. In Florida especially, Delta's 100 hour window for P.M's is a joke.
I have not been upgraded once prior to airport check in while there have 10-15 F.C. seats available at 100 hours.
I would be interested to hear if others flying to and from Fla are seeing any change.

So far their upgrade changes have only effected my MCO/ATL flights. Since they started this I have not cleared at time of booking on 5 flights in "B" except on 1. At the 100 hr window I am batting zero and at the 24 hr window I am at 50%. In total I have had only 4 flights actually clear at the first window. All the others except 3 have cleared at the gate. Of the 3 that never did clear, 2 were "B" and 1 was a "K", all were from ATL to MCO. As far as I am concerned Delta has simply replaced their upgrade program with the one Eastern Airlines had 20 years ago (It was called "Executive Traveler") which was a gate lottery based on time of check in on day of travel.
On a side note I have also noticed a big decrease in available award seats (F or Y) on flights involving travel between MCO, MLB, DAB and ATL, but when checking from ATL outbound to any destination except those cites above there seems to be ample seats and flights to choose from.



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former EASTERN ET,AA Gold,US Gold. Current DL PM-MM,Marriott PL, SPG PLT, Hilton Gold

It is comments like this that make you sound like you work for DL! You and DL truly do not understand what customer "VALID" requirements are. I say VALID as "giving it all away for free" is not a valid requirement and sounds like you think DL's best customers are greedy idiots. It is this attitude that has caused many DL top level customers to avoid flying DL.

What the customer wants is a FF program that is easy to understand and does not have to be an actuary and psychic to figure out if they may or may not have a chance at getting an upgrade. They do not want everything for free, this is your demented interpretation. This FF website is all about getting more and improving your flying experience. Perhaps you should go work for DL customer service where "just say no" has been the party line and or find an website the preaches that Leo Mullin is King.



[This message has been edited by JRF (edited Mar 24, 2004).]