DLfan

I was told by a Delta agent today that once you are added to the waitlist for an upgrade on an international flight, the booking class does not factor into the ranking. The only ranking factors are Medallion status and time stamp. So a PM on a M fare would clear ahead of a PM on a Y fare if the M was added to the waitlist first.

Can anyone confirm this, anecdotally or otherwise?

UnofficialDLHelper

Take my reply w/ a grain of salt...

IMHO, what you said is correct. Clearing into Z from Y/B/M would clear based on medallion status and time stamp from when they originally requested the upgrade. In the PNR, Platinums are waitlisted as PA, Golds are PB, and Silvers are PC; as you can see, the system reads A first, then B, and then C.

The new system that processes domestic upgrades is completely different from this system, therefore, I cannot see how it could tell the difference in coach fare class.

Again, I didn't write the Worldspan code years ago for the programming, so there is a chance I could be wrong, but I'm comfortable w/ my analysis.

I would expect we'd want to clear the PM on a Y fare before a PM on a M fare, despite when they waitlisted, but I'm sure when debated, you'd have opinions from both sides.

Crackerpup

I'm traveling with a friend to AMS on 1/1; I'm PM, he's GM and our records are separated. We are booked in L on the outbound and T on the return.

1/1: SFO-ATL-AMS
1/7: AMS-JFK-ATL-SFO (don't ask; DL screwed me royally on this one)

According to the DL seatmaps, there are plenty of seats in BE on both trans-atlantic flights. My questions are:

1. What can I do to ensure an upgrade in advance? (already understand about the PM upgrades and can't use due to fare booked)
2. What are my options to get upgraded day of travel? (at this point, there are more than 14 seats available in BE on each flight)

According to a conversation I had with SMS/Int'l, it would be up to the gate agent on day of travel to make the call. Seems a bit wishy-washy and random to treat DL's best customers this way.

Thoughts?

PS: Not concerned about the domestic upgrades which I am expecting to clear.

DLfan

In my experience, your only real shot at the upgrade is in the event that the flight is seriously oversold in coach with seats left open upfront (op up).

griffinj

International booking in LUT is not upgradable, not with miles, not with PMU's, nothing. PMU's and/or miles can get you upgraded in YBM fares (there may be others with miles).

Nothing really. Unless you want to pay for a higher coach fare and use PMU's or miles. This also assumes that there is upgrade inventory available.


Again, really none. Assuming that some of them are in the right inventory class (Z), you could upgrade as above. However, from what I have seen, Delta will fly those seats empty.

As DLFan said earlier. Hope for an oversold coach and get to the CRC early to get on the standby list for OpUp.

sts603

Two M class waitlisted upgrades for DKR-ATL. J looks wide open right now. When does Z class usually open up on DL? And do the auto-sweeps work well or is checking Z class availability advised?

clarence5ybr

When it opens can be highly variable. For an int'l RT this past spring, some Z seats opened up for the outbound leg about three weeks in advance. For the return leg, 2 Z seats did not open up until two days prior to the flight.

For the outbound flight, I was not waitlisted--there are plenty of reports on FT about people who bought Y/B/M fares and were willing to use miles or PMUs but ended up sitting in Y. When EF alerted me to 2Z being open, I called in and paid our fares up to M. For the return leg, we were waitlisted, and UG status on DL.com changed to "Contact DL" with no notification from EF that the inventory had opened. Based on this experience, I assume that if someone is waitlisted the Z bucket fare gets 'taken' as soon as it's added, meaning that monitoring EF shouldn't be needed. However, it certainly wouldn't hurt to monitor availability just in case the system don't work right.

OpieGr

For my TATL flights this summer to various places in EUR, the magic time seems to be two weeks out if BE is 50%+ empty. If less than that, times can vary.

herzmeh

Unless something has significantly changed, I DO NOT trust the waitlist. See my thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...376&highlight=

clarence5ybr

My seamless experience was more recent than yours, so maybe they have fixed things since your bad experience. However, maybe I just got lucky.

Looking at the big picture, the monetary cost of an EF subscription and the couple of minutes it takes to set up an alert on EF are nothing to the typical buy-up cost from an L/U/T fare to a Y/B/M fare. Thus,I would consider checking on the Z bucket yourself if you're waitlisted to be a very prudent form of insurance.