Do a 'change flight' query every now and then; you may snag a good fare that way. The added advantage is that if you use that route, it will be a trip actually booked in class, rather than an upgrade. in IRROPS you're protected, vsl losing your upgrade when flights get changed.

What is specific route and date? Not being able to get immediate comp upgrade to C+ as a Platinum is odd unless you happen to have more than 2 pax on the same reservation (which will disable comp upgrades to C+/FC). SFO-JFK as a D1 route can only be sold as part of an O&D (origin and destination) D1 fare. It's possible there's no O&D D1 fare filings on route (although if you can get it on return, that doesn't make sense) or there's simply no married segment inventory availability on flights. Hard to know exactly without knowing route and date to lookup inventory availability on ExpertFlyer.

Over the past few months I have had trouble upgrading automatically on a domestic non-BE flight to C+ as a DM with a PNR of just me with 50%+ of the C+ section open. This never happened before unless the PNR had 3+ people or C+ was sold out.

SFO-JFK-PUJ on May 21 (arriving May 22)
Yeah, there seems no D1 fare filing available (explained same way by the hotline - although the return flight is available in D1 and ticket issued (outbound main cabin, inbound FC/ D1)). Hotline stated, there is no fare loaded - so not even any issue regarding availability.
And booking for 1 person only

Yep, I checked ExpertFlyer and there are no D1 fare filings on SFO-PUJ and only FC fare filings. Most FC fare filings explictly prohibit routings that include D1 routes on D1 equipment with the exception of FC fares with fare basis codes YNNA0NFY (non-refundable) and YNNA0RFY (refundable) which book into J class. Here's a snippet of the Flight Application section of DL FC fare rules from ExpertFlyer which runs several pages long for all other FC fares. FC fare filings have an 'F' in second to last character of fare basis code while D1 fare filings will have a 'D' there.



Even though the J class FC fares allow the routing, there still must be married segment inventory availability in J class to book those fares. And DL always looks to zero out married segment inventory in all FC classes with that routing so it is impossible to book those J fares. The only way to potentially book them is to add a stopover at JFK (layover greater than 12 hours for PUJ). At that point, married segment inventory no longer applies (there just has to individual flight inventory in J). In addition to having to pay for the J fare, there's a $200 stopover fee and the total price is slightly over $3K.

I appreciate all your efforts to look into this!

I was hoping, to work around this weird constraint with Cash Upgrades - which are fixed priced on SFO <-> JFK.
But nothing shows up so far - despite this (yet) total empty cabin. So maybe DL expects to sell all of the seats...
But even that, I have never seen even on super busy days on that route...

I have seen it a number of times before on domestic segments of international itins. It is rare to see no offers on purely domestic itins. DL does not guarantee there will always be offers on flights. There's not much you can do if there isn't one. Especially on a route like this were they don't really sell the D1 cabin on a D1 fare and thus no option to upgrade via an upfare.

I got an upgrade offer for $20 in the app. Just over an hour flight.

I get them trying to monetize First Class. I get $20 multiplied by thousands of flights is real money. I get paying $20 for a decent seat for an hour and a drink isn't a bad deal. I get WFBF.

However it still stings a little that they'd rather take $20 than offer that as a loyalty perk. It just cheapens the whole thing when it's $20. For some reason if it's $100 then I'll be glad to not pay and let someone else part with their money. But $20???? You're just nickel and diming me now, like Frontier. Oh you want a chance for upgrades, main classic, costs a little more, ok now you can't actually get the upgrade unless you pay another $20 more.

I suppose my point, if I have one other than complaining, is at least make it $75 so it's not so insulting.

Delta has signaled for over a decade that Medallion complimentary upgrades, especially to FC, are essentially going away. I'm past the point of being upset and am at acceptance. It actually works out well when Delta offers such low-price upgrades. I can book MC to follow company travel policy, and then upgrade on my own dime (or RDMs), which also adds to my MQD accrual. And as a side benefit, I no longer pay much attention to upgrade queues. WFBF, and otherwise, view FC upgrades as a surprise bonus.

Complimentary upgrades were the carrot and loss leader when the game was to get business travelers to discretionally direct their share of their firm's spend to a particular airline. The new hook, line, and sinker is lounge access availed to a much larger subset of the population. That has resulted in a fat mid-elite tier, but they are hooked into the Amex/DL ecosystem. TINSTAAFL

What if I just a beverage and the snack basket since it�s a short flight? 😁

I don't love this for a different reason--it makes it harder to SDC in the FC cabin or stay in FC in IRROPs if you paid full-fare for it. If the folks with complementary upgrades or these super cheap upgrades got downgraded if space was needed in these situations that would fix that problem, but create others.

I posted in this thread because of my thoughts and questions on the cash upgrade to overcome the absence of an available fare.
Thank you for your insight and additional info - I really appreciate that.

OT: Delta just changed the schedule... DL670 and DL 2112 swapped equipment and are rescheduled to a later departure - so my connection in JFK is not viable anymore...
Which makes me sooooo happy (not).
Because now it requires a short night in JFK (not really great) or changing to another routing (through ATL) - but I am not a fan of Redeyes in FC... Yeah, a bit snobish - but I am long a fan of the North American F concept on longer flights (applies to all carriers...)
All seems to go well...

In May, my girlfriend and I are flying SEA-TPE (Taipei, Taiwan) in Premium Select. However, we have separate bookings because while we are traveling outbound together, we are returning separately (and in fact I am returning on another airline, for reasons not important to get into here). So I have a one-way ticket and she has a round-trip ticket, but to be clear we are on the same flight from SEA-TPE and I selected adjacent seats in the PS cabin. Both tickets were booked on Delta,com, all flights are Delta tickets on Delta metal with Delta flight numbers, and both are in fare class G. I am Platinum Medallion, my girlfriend is a nonstatus Skymiles member.

Here is the interesting thing: if you call up her itinerary and bring up the seat map, there is an upgrade offer to Delta One. However when I call up my itinerary, there is no upgrade offer . . .all the Delta One seats have the "X". I have attached screenshots of the seat maps (the one on the left is the seat map you see for her, the one on the right is the o ne you see for me; as you can see we are currently in PS seats 20H ["RC"] and 20J ["AK"]).

The upgrade offer is really no bargain ($2550), so I am not going to bite. But what concerns me is that as the flight date approaches, there is always a chance that the upgrade offer could change and become more palatable.

Why is she getting an offer to upgrade to D1 and I am not?


So why is my girlfriend getting this upgrade offer and I am not?

Have you tried bringing up your reservation using different devices and browsers? The app or not the app?

I don�t know enough to answer your question but I would suggest checking religiously as I recently accepted a very cheap upgrade offer on a very cheap PS fare and that was after weeks of rejecting various 4-figure offers that ranged from just overpriced to outright lunacy.