Welcome to a weekly feature on the Renés Points blog. Each week this series covers in a “rookie” way either a Delta or travel related theme and attempts to break down to a basic level each topic. You can read up on all the previous posts HERE. Now on to this week’s feature.

I assume, you, like me, are somewhat concerned about just what seat you end up in. Those of us who fly Delta a bunch know JUST what seat on what bird (even different versions of the “same” bird) is the best one and the one we would love to have.

Delta has done a bunch of things to make it MUCH more work for us to score that seat. You see with Award Wallet, when say your KLM seats changes, it will ALERT you to this change. Well since Delta blocks Award Wallet we get NO such notice (booooo Delta). Expert Flyer is another resource Delta has pulled the plug on so no joy there either. So what can you do?

Whenever there is a schedule change your seats can get messed up. I mean JUST the flight number can change i.e. the times all stay the same but your seat gets moved due to this. Now you can use this to your advantage and “steal” another flyer’s seat that perhaps got moved or not even assigned one (they are confirmed just no seat for now or the computers have not caught up and given one to them). So, you can take the perfect seat they had 😉

Now again, you will NOT get alerted by Delta that the above has happened (boooo Delta) nor when Delta does an equipment swap and your seat gets tossed who knows where. You need to follow DeltaPoints and preferably on twitter as many times readers alert me to changes and tweeting is faster than I can post. Anyway, you can then jump on Delta.com or your Fly Delta App and get the seats you wanted back!

So far this post really has nothing to do with the rookie title but I am at last getting to that! As you can see from the opening photo I have highlighted some seats (yeah it’s a CRJ200 – don’t rub it in). These seats, even as a Diamond Medallion who has full access to “preferred” seats could not be selected. They only opened up to me 24hrs before flight at check-in. These are often times bulkheads and such seats.

Now here is the really fun part. I mentioned 24hrs but if you have a connecting flight you can most times get access due to your first flight at the 24hr mark even though it is MORE than 24hrs for the connecting flight. So, you can get a good jump on those “perfect” seats.

Last bit of great advice is to focus on last week’s rookie Shena post. If you do not score the very last upgrade seat some other preferred seat may, very close to boarding, open up due to medallion upgrades. You will most times NOT have access to those but you can nicely bug the gate agent that if an EC or EXIT row seat opens up due to upgrades clearing could you please be moved to that one. – René
.
Editorial Note: This content is not provided by American Express. Any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express.
.

Gold Delta SkyMiles®
Credit Card from American Express®
Click HERE for more info

. .