Over on UA its nearly impossible to get upgraded as a 1K due to the YCA fares. Don't try to fly out of IAD on UA.

If you read the policy, you will see that this is way way way blown out of proportion. There is nothing new.

Any elite purchasing a Y fare gets UG ahead of those purchasing lesser fare bases. DL does not look at what was paid for the Y fare. Some organizations, including the government and some larger businesses, negotiate discounts. If your organization negotiates a 25% discount and you purchase what is published as a $1,000 Y fare, you will pay $750 and you will be UG ahead of a higher level elite who pays $900 for a B fare.

This is only more evident in the government context because the discounts are public and recognized in the fare coding as YCA.

Note, before jumping of a cliff, that this applies only to people travelling on YCA fares, which is far from all government travelers.

DL is free -- as are UA & AA -- to shift to a fare paid analysis for UG and not even consider fare basis. But, none of the legacies do and I would not expect it to happen.

Y-up practices aside, people do not have the right to know terms of bilateral contracts DL signs with public or private entities.

"Based on Availability." Delta determines the upgrade order and the upgrade availability.

That is true of contracts with private entities. It is not true of government contracts. With the limited exception of certain national security matters, government contracts are not only subject to FOIA, they are actually public records.

This is what causes the upset here. The guy sitting next to you may work for a Fortune 100 and pay 60% of what you do for the equivalent fare basis and he may be an automatic GS and receive other perks. But, you will never know. The government guy travels on a specific fare code, YCA, and the terms of the deal under which he travels is public.

Of course, but the upgrade order and associated rules are basically all included as published benefits, although DL (like other airline FF programs) retains the right to change the rules at any time.

The point is that free elite upgrades have been earned; they are not like surprise gifts from the airline (as an OPUP would be).

But, as with award seat availability, the mechanism governing free elite upgrades is virtually opaque. So they might as well be "surprise gifts" given their unpredictability.