News and notes from around the interweb:
- Remember, there are Diamonds spending $40,000 a year with Delta because they think they’re going to get upgrades. But Delta does this – $37 upgrades. That’s why Delta says only 13% of first class seats go to upgrades now. A decade ago it was more than half the seats. That’s why if you’re chasing status, mid-tier is often now the sweet spot just to get extra legroom coach (and priority boarding so you don’t have your carry-on confiscated at the gate).
- When you act like animals, you deserve what today’s basic economy flying experience
- When hotel service charges actually go to the employees.
A sweet payday for the staff at JW Marriott Phuket.
The Service Charge bonus from Dec 19 2025 – Jan 18 2026 was 111,889 baht each. pic.twitter.com/auwEvsUnFm
— ᒍᑌᔕT ᗰIKE (@JustMikeMcKay) January 23, 2026
- Infinite money glitch.
1) Use Canadian Dollars to Buy Casino Chips
2) Exchange Casino Chips for American Dollars
3) Exchange American Dollars for Canadian Dollars
4) Goto 1 https://t.co/KlTSbAVB3O— Kent Fellows (@GK_Fellows) January 23, 2026
- Minnesota ICE protest encouraging people to book rental cars and cancel them this seems really unfair
- Oh, come on, American.
@AmericanAir Sure would have nice to allow me to move to the empty seat across the aisle pic.twitter.com/E65SbtguuF
— LPC (@LisaPlogCarey) January 23, 2026
@AmericanAir this is unacceptable! We all know the A321T is being retired, but at least try to keep it a bit up to standard. #dirty #disgrace #americanair pic.twitter.com/I7qwW19QjI
— markusontheline (@markusontheline) January 23, 2026
Who needs upgrades when… total cancellations within, into, or out of the United States today: 9,957 and counting. Bad news bears for ATL, JFK, EWR, LGA, PHL, IAD, DCA, BOS, CLT…
Aren’t loyalty upgrades enticement by some heartless AI algorithym from the SV?
37 dollars?
I’d buy it
I quit chasing status and upgrades a couple of years ago. As a former AA six million miler and UA 1K member, if I want to sit in first I either buy it or buy an upgrade (and paid as little as $42). As long as. I can board early (to get overhead space) and get a bit. Of extra legroom on the aisle), life is good.
EdSparks58
Gary, I had an upgrade offer for $25 on a flight out of Seattle last year. I still have the screenshots. I was a Diamond, it was within the upgrade window, and nine out of 12 first class seats were available. When I checked in, I was 1 of 2 on the upgrade list for the nine first class seats. They finally upgraded me 12 hours before the flight.
Jim,
what was the segment?
Gary always seems to find the short segments – like this one, BOS-JFK, which serves primarily as a feeder for international flights and a smaller amount of local demand that BOS-LGA.
Given that we are in winter, international demand is low.
Are DL and other airlines monetizing first class at very low fares rather than taking upgrades? We don’t have anywhere enough data to say that is happening on a widespread basis.
Gary loves to draw conclusions based on anecdotes but he is going to have to come up w/ a lot more data to prove his point regardless of the airline being discussed
@1990 — Tell me about it! In a parallel universe I’d be trying out the Q70 this weekend.
I’ve gotten $49 twice on very short routes (ie MSP- STL) but just for fun, ton of open seats where one would get a whole row in economy to themselves anyway.
Commercial flight cancellations in the US have passed 10,000 – a level I can’t remember ever seeing in one day after 4000+ yesterday and almost 2000 for tomorrow.
ATL and DFW are both just under 50% cancellations today which is absolute reliability compared to CLT at 80% and 85%+ at all of the NE airports except for BOS which might be there tomorrow.
this is taking an economic hit on the country to be shut down for multiple days.
I got a $43 upgrade offer from MDT-DTW last week. After spending over $28K last year to get to DM status, it’s insulting.
Further proof that DL doesn’t really care to offer a true loyalty program that rewards its best customers. The calculus has changed and all they care about now is quarterly revenue and not long-term loyalty.
It’s fine because I’m no longer loyal to DL, either.
At the end of the day, I’m glad I didn’t pay for the upgrade. The flight delayed by over two hours and I had to uber to PHL to get home.
I’m here to see people defend screwing over rental car customers.