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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.
Last week’s Rookie Wednesday post touched on an import topic of ticket reissues. But there is another side issue that can happen with this and other seat / jet changes and that is the possibility that you could miss out on an upgrade.
Take a look at the screen shot above from one of my reservations. Notice something missing? Yep – I am not requested for a 1st class upgrade. This is something I always always always want checked.
I have this set as my default in my “My Delta” in the flight preferences page (must be logged in to Delta to have link work) but we should know that this setting does not do very much at all to guarantee your wishes will stick in your reservation and that is the key to today’s post.
There are any number of things that can result in what you see in the image at the top of this post. Things like:
- Ticket reissues
- Equipment changes
- Partner changes
- Seat “downgrades”
- Splitting reservations
The bottom line is anytime you make changes, or Delta makes changes, you need to check at the very bottom of the itinerary on Delta.com to see if anything on any of your legs has been changed and boxes that once were checked no longer are.
Also keep in mind that Schedule Change Saturday happens just about every single week and this means each Sunday I would take the time to review each and every trip you have booked. Yes, it is a real pain and we know for a fact Delta many times will NOT alert you to changes so it is up to us to verify.
As a final check, when you are 6 days out before your departure, check your trip again because we know that Delta starts processing upgrades now exactly at the 5 day (to the minute) mark and you do not want to miss out on the 1st possible upgrade window as it could be your only chance with first class up-sells becoming the norm as the flight time draws closer.
Have you ever missed out on an upgrade due to the above? I have and now I take my own advice to make sure Delta IT never bumps me off the upgrade list ever again! – René
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Leaving for a trip in 2 days. 6 flight segments. Upgrades cleared on all but the first and last segments. There are no boxes to check to request upgrades so I called Delta and got the “oh that’s strange, seats are available. Don’t don’t why the system didn’t automatically upgrade you.” I was using my regional UG certs and when the 4 flight upgrades cleared the ticket was reissued. When it reissued, the upgrade requests for the other two flights disappeared. UGH.
@Christine K – Ugh is right! Gotta love Delta IT.
Rene, this reminds me of when I flew a segment from ATL-MCO. I’m just a lowly Silver so UGs aren’t typically common for me and that seemed to be the case for this flight as well. However for some dumb reason my C+ “UG” box got checked automatically somehow (I never leave it checked unless it’s after the FO window and there are several aisle/window seats still available) and I was “upgraded” to a C+ middle. Thankfully the DL app actually let me downgrade myself back to my original regular coach seat so no big deal. However, I was about to check myself in a few hours later when I realized that the FC UG box was now also unchecked. There were 15 PAX on the UG list already and only 2 seats remaining so wasn’t thinking at all that I would get the UG but still checked the box. Well I go to refresh my itinerary an I now see that I am in Seat 1A / First Class (RU). I thought to myself that’s strange but wasn’t going to complain! When I boarded I saw the guy who boarded before me was a Platnium who went back to C+. Why did DLs IT let me jump other Platnium and Gold medallions for the UG?