Delta is now selling first class upgrades for as little as $26. That’s the lowest price I’ve ever seen, and points to how far they’ll go to avoid offering complimentary upgrades to their best customers. They’ve been on a 10-year journey trying to phase out first class upgrades and they’ve nearly accomplished it. AI and basic business class will help them squeeze out the last bit.
American, United and Delta will all take small amounts of money from infrequent flyers instead of offering a free upgrade to a customer that spends $20,000 or $30,000 with them each year.
United was early with the practice of making upgrade offers on domestic flights for ‘tens of dollars’. American has become very aggressive as well. But Delta is furthest along, with only about 13% of first class seats now going to upgrades (20 years ago it was 90%). That’s a key reason that airline status isn’t worth what it once was.
Here are the two cheapest upgrade offers I have ever seen. I’d never spotted one for less than $40 before.
Comment
byu/Icy-Tower2344 from discussion
indelta
The customer with the $37 offer remarked,
Yeah it’s a two hour short flight, but it’s the week of thanksgiving and I am flying with my cat so to me, worth it! I upgraded on the way back for a bit more, but combined sooo worth it.
Thanksgiving flights tend to be full, but full of vacation travelers who may not be buying first class. However, the truth is that these are pretty great deals, even for short flights.
You’ll spend half an hour on the plane prior to pushback and then there’s taxi time on both ends of the flight, so an hour-long flight is closer to two hours. And there are several benefits you get:
- You get free checked bags, which are more than the cost of the upgrade
- And free seat assignments. Compare, for instance, to $20 or more for regular seats in many cases and perhaps $40 for extra legroom – you get the extra legroom and the additional width.
- Board early to avoid having your carry-on bag confiscated
- And free cocktails, which some airlines offer to extra legroom coach (which can be just as expensive)
With plans for ‘good, better, best’ pricing some of the benefits of first class may get unbundled, and maybe Delta won’t offer free checked bags with any first class seat in the future. At less than $30, that’s hardly surprising.
And this also helps explain why first class meals are so bad. An airline isn’t going to invest much more than $1 when the revenue premium is so small.
Status upgrades basically ceased to exist years ago
Clutch! I’m hoping to get similar price for my DL flight next week on a CRJ9 (hopefully not one that got a boo-boo the other day). The upgrade price has gone down from $150ish but still sitting around $100. Only four seats left though, but will keep monitoring it just for fun.
DL is oddly surprisingly available for comp elite upgrades in my experience vs UA.
Cleared a status upgrade at booking within my elite tier upgrade clearance window on DL this week. Connection had 6 seats clear at the gate.
Interesting. I typically see upgrade offers from DAB (Daytona Beach) to ATL for anywhere from $155 to $400+
That said, rarely any seats at checkin and upgrades are at best occasional DM 3/MM
I stop chasing airline points about 8 years ago. Sometimes I don’t even claim miles when booking these days. The aggravation trying to redeem them isnt worth my time.
Don’t chase status for the complimentary upgrades alone. Sure, they do still occasionally happen, but it’s rare, like 50/50 for a Diamond on DL. As @Gene says: Want First? Buy First. (Yes, your employer is cheap.)
The only caveat is higher-tier benefits, like Delta’s RUCs (great for transcons, like JFK-SFO/LAX) and GUCs (epic for long-haul, saving $5-10K for me recently), and also jetBlue’s Move to Mint (which actually worked well for me last year to LHR), which often confirm at the time of booking, unlike UA’s PlusPoints and AA’s SWUs.
As I said in the other recent post, status is overrated, even when things go well, and when things go wrong, practically worthless, other than a slightly shorter, but still hours-long callback time.
@L737 — That boo-boo ain’t gonna buff out in-time, so I think you’ll be alright. Good luck on the upgrade, paid or otherwise.
@PENILE — Are you trolling at DoC as ‘Reader of Gary Leff’ these days? If so, very fine work, sir.
Also, when I read Gary’s headline, I couldn’t help but think of Al Pacino’s performance in House of Gucci… “DEAD!!” …reacting to Jared Letto’s character who ‘sold his stock… boof.’
Status upgrades are… “DEAD!!”
https://youtu.be/fGbWS4ZctOI?si=n1HlDWgw396tNVJY
(0:53 and onward)
It’s actually a decent metaphor for this… Delta needed the extra cash… they ‘sold’ those upgrades… we’re not happy, obviously, but us Medallions will accept the ‘idiot’ changes…
I flew round-trip to Syracuse last week. I was number 2 of 12 on the upgrade list on a Tuesday for Detroit-Syracuse with 2 empty seats. Million Miler and Diamond. That’s just crazy.
I just buy first now on routes over 90 minutes.
And same-day change is worthless even with a paid first-class ticket when theoretically you can change to any legal routing with an open first-class seat because Delta’s first-class cabin is sold-out that nothing is ever available.
Now I know why nothing is ever available for same-day change.
Of course, this is a two way street. With elite status value being pounded down to paper thin value, frequent flyers no longer need to overpay to get a seat on their so called “preferred airline”. We are now free to shop by price, frequent flyer miles be damned.
@1990:
“The only caveat is higher-tier benefits, like Delta’s RUCs (great for transcons, like JFK-SFO/LAX) and GUCs (epic for long-haul, saving $5-10K for me recently), and also jetBlue’s Move to Mint (which actually worked well for me last year to LHR), which often confirm at the time of booking, unlike UA’s PlusPoints and AA’s SWUs.”
Since when are regionals clearing at the time of booking? That’s incredibly rare.
And globals require you to book premium economy to clear at booking. Premium is often double the price of economy. Otherwise, you have to upgrade into premium and then waitlist for the chance at sitting in a Delta One seat on a 767 and drinking $4 Andre sparking wine.
Exactly. It’s a poorly kept secret that Delta treats flyers well in Economy Class, so flyers want to experience more. Unfortunately, better credit cards, more spend, and more flying on DL doesn’t bring much more. First Class/Delta One isn’t that special. Now it’s less frequently available for an upgrade. Delta Comfort ? LOL. Not sure what Medallions are clinging to.
@1990 – hell yeah buddy! If you’re extremely perceptive, you’ll notice “Reader of Gary Leff” exists as the moniker for multiple underlying accounts. That’s a ban evasion tactic for the inevitable moment I post an overly spicy comment.
BTW, I do not entirely believe that “John” is not your moniker on that website. Two comments from (incidentally, also separate) “1990” accounts had zero comment history which was suspicious.
Also puzzling is that you seem to have no presence on One Mile at a Time.
Airlines are free to maximize their short term revenue, just like I am free to get off the status treadmill after this year. They will lose a lot more revenue from me ($50K+) than the $47 that they tried to get at check in from pitching the FC seat to me and others rather than clearing me for an upgrade as an AA EXP. The value proposition keeps getting worse and worse for chasing status and it has reached the tipping point for me at least (and I’m sure for others).
@1990
so the reason to stick with delta is international and transcontinental upgrades?
I won’t pretend to be an expert on this, but I’d be curious if Gary could ever discern between which program at AA/DL/UA is better at those Y>J upgrade coupons.
At this point, the reason to stick with Delta if you live in NYC is really just schedule. Which, ironically, is what the AA execs had been preaching — schedule — and also the honest reason why DL does well in NYC for those New Yorkers that abhor Newark. I’m not a New Yorker, but I will never fly into Newark to go to NYC again. That was the most ridiculous uber ride ever.
But with DL… Why else would you want an awful mileage program that is pretty useless at redemption? Delta is able to make their redemption program useless because their flyers want to fly delta and it’s usually for schedule and a perceived premiumness — though most here could have a go at how inconsistent Delta is at that.
Imagine being a SkyMiles elite customer for decades with hundreds of thousands in lifetime spend, only to discover your gate upgrade was given away for $25…
@FNT Delta Diamond — I literally gave the example (JFK-SFO/LAX); where are you based, ATL? RUCs still work.
@PENILE — Niccce. There are way too many ‘John’s on DoC. I prefer VFTW for my commentary, for now at least.
@MaxPower — No, I have no real ‘loyalty’ to any airline; I was saying, that if you happen to earn Platinum or Diamond, the RUCs and GUCs still hold real outsized value (to me at least).
Gary quit whining. If you want first buy it or pay for the upgrade. Constantly talking about the “good old days” that aren’t coming back accomplished nothing.
@Retired Gambler — But, but… the nostalgia!
DL has now conditioned their most loyal customers to PAY for what they used to get for FREE.
GAME OVER, DELTA WINS.
Excepting an incredibly short American Airlines flight like Austin to Dallas, I’ve never seen an offer from them for less than $ 350 to upgrade to FC. Case in point, I’m flying back to Austin on October 16, at 13:06 pm. The upgrade offer arrived this morning, and was $ 366. On flights during prime time (17:00 to 18:30). the offers have been over $ 500. I’ve got no idea if others are paying that, but those are the offers that they send to me.
@1990
and @gambler
it is some nostalgia except that Delta is at the forefront of giving such a little Sh*t about their loyal customers. UA is getting close and AA sells upgrades too but… $26 really is putting a price point on your loyal customers. the upgrade ratio just simply isn’t that low with UA or AA. Delta customers really do mean that little to delta and that Delta is happy to put the price between Y and domestic F at $26. This is just one reference point and hardly useful for general assumptions from a statistical view but… Delta is also the only company bragging publicly from their C suite about how little they value complimentary upgrades to loyal customers.
For those of that aren’t Delta loyalists (aka not stuck at a DL core hub) and can still redeem on OneWorld or Star carriers easily… it does cause some disbelief that some are so loyal to the delta ecosystem to a company that values them so incredibly little and brags loudly about it to investors.
DELTA DON’T LOVE YOU, GIRL
This is good news for a coach flier like I am. It not only brings higher class seats within reach moneywise but also possibly creates empty seats in coach and the airline makes a bit more from the fee. It works better for the airline revenue because those who want higher class seats and have the funds will pay for those seats instead of expecting them for free. I have never got a free upgrade from the big three USA airlines. I only remember one upgrade for a reasonable fee and that was $200, which I took advantage of because I absolutely needed to get sleep on a United red-eye flight (it worked out great).
Let me also point out that the upgraded seats for less frequent fliers is strategic. The mix of fliers has changed a lot since Covid-19. With fewer business fliers, there are fewer fliers that will have paid for premium price seats. So airlines are trying to get those willing to pay even a bit more for an upgraded experience a chance to become hooked on premium seats. Even if only a few are hooked it helps with future revenue. Maybe the airlines strategically send out low cost upgrades to customers who haven’t had one yet (or for a while) or to customers who seem to be more likely to become hooked on premium seats per crunching numbers on a lot of factors and including the use of AI. An additional thought is that having the fee based upgrades done prior to the gate means that fewer gate agents are needed to process the free upgrades and the ripple process of free upgrades.
Why would any airline care about losing customer loyalty? If one person stops spending $50K a year at one airline, another customer will quickly take their place. The airlines absolutely know this. They also know you have limited options, and you’ll most likely continue to fly them, and pay full price for a ticket, and you’ll like it or lump it.
I’m not saying this isn’t worthy of discussion, but a number of folks are stuck on that “they just don’t care about loyalty.” Well, duh. They’re out to make money. Airlines have learned that people will buy, and they have no need to reward loyalty.
@MaxPower — But, but… we buy her Diamonds each year…
@WearyWatchdog — Yup. Last I checked, these are still businesses, not charities. That said, I still like worker and consumer protections, and prefer to be treated well, not like cattle. Moo.
Maybe the demand by the travelers who spend $50k a year on airlines is inelastic. In other words, they will fly anyhow and how they fly will always be more or less the same. If they don’t fly one of the big three, they will fly another. Maybe they move to another airline but the other airline has a customer who moves in the opposite direction. The key for more income is to get the customers who are more elastic on spending to spend more.
@jns — Why spend $50,000 on airfare and have status with just one of the ‘big three’ when you can spend $50,000 on each! Diamond! 1K! EP! (Mosaic!)
Delta is the only premium carrier so it’s understood status upgrades are finished
Besides those elites spending tens of thousands they should bow to DELTA for allowing them to purchase tickets
Premium Enshittification At Delta
Exactly. It’s a poorly kept secret that Delta treats flyers well in Economy Class, so flyers want to experience more. Unfortunately, better credit cards, more spend, and more flying on DL doesn’t bring much more. First Class/Delta One isn’t that special.
Perhaps the airlines have figured out that most humans are not all that rational in their behavior? When I started playing the airline loyalty game decades ago, they were great benefits to having high elite status. Now, I think, the benefits dwindle materially after you reach the lowest tier. Yet lots of people still care about the higher status levels.. Meanwhile, it turns out that people will pay considerable money to be only slightly more comfortable on relatively short flights. That doesn’t seem very rational to me either. The logical sweet spot to me these days seems to be getting free upgrades to the extra legroom coach seats (which is still relatively easy to do), especially since these are also the rows most likely to fly with empty middle seats. That’s where there is the best cost to comfort ratio.
No business ever succeeded giving away stuff for free.
There’s a reason why SkyPesos’ issuer makes a ton of money (globally, only Emirates makes more) while the issuer of AAdvantage miles may end up the year in the red.
All these very biased bloggers like this one (who make their money as salespeople for credit cards issuers) have been wrong all along.
Good news.
More freeloader OPM flyers now sit in their ticketed cabin. Take it up with your corporate overlord who wont pay for F, and let the rest of us who pay for it enjoy it.
@Chopsticks — Empty middle seats? Psh. Not often on DL, UA, or AA. In fact, when it’s a full flight, the Basic Economy folks often get seated in those middle seats with extra legroom by those airlines, even though they usually don’t have status, because there’s nowhere else to put them. If you don’t believe me, next time you fly, review the standby for seat assignments; you’ll see folks in the last group to board getting the seat next you (dearest Silver Medallion, Premier Silver, and AAdvantage Gold member).
Employees are going to hate Delta for this.
@Anna — Yeah, it’s almost like workers, even ‘white collar’ workers, should unite. And, because those corporate employees rarely unionize, or express any solidarity… they’ll never stand up for themselves to their greedy bosses and overlords, mostly out of fear they’d be let go ‘at-will’… so, instead of ever doing anything, they’ll just whine, rather than become class-conscious. It’s both laughable and sad.
@Bob G — You mean, OPM employees, meaning corporate travelers, whose tickets are paid by their employers, not Delta employees, just to clarify. I know, nuance… yuck.
Presumably $26 is rare and would be for a very short regional jet flight (less than 30 minutes air time) out of ATL into a nearby city. On AA I think the cheapest I’ve seen is like $49 for PHX/TUS a 100 mile flight. Of course, if your flight ends up stuck on the tarmac/gate due to an ATC hold that $26 starts to look really good (or even $49).
Status is becoming meaningless unless you get top invite only level. Essentially, you’re just another face in the sea of faces.
‘You get free checked bags, which are more than the cost of the upgrade’
This is exactly why I look at Domestic first class fares on my positioning flights. I always have a bag, sometimes two for the international leg.. with airlines charging $30-40 for a checked bag, the fares are pretty similar just buying a first class compared to economy/plus with 2 bags. At this point, the bigger seat just becomes a bonus.
@George Nathan Romey — Your “just another face in the sea of faces” comment may be my new favorite, George. The anonymity. The humility. It’s somewhat comforting, in an era where it seems like the narcissistic sociopaths run everything, to just be ‘in the crowd of nobodies,’ soon to be forgotten, dust to dust. Deep stuff, sir.
@1990. Yes, the last seats filled in the plane are in the extra legroom economy section. If your flight is 100% full, obviously this doesn’t work. I will say that on int’l flights, it seems to work for me about 75 to 80% of the time (on domestic flights, the odds are a little worse). When I see people paying fantastic sums of money to buy “premium economy” over regular economy, I think they’re basically chumps, because an empty middle seat in economy is basically equivalent to premium economy (I actually prefer the empty-middle seat in coach). And candidly, flying in coach from the East Coast to Europe with an empty middle seat isn’t really materially less comfortable flying in biz class at 10x the price.
This doesn’t at all match my experience. I booked a last-minute trip this week on DL and went 4/4 on comp upgrades to F (although one didn’t clear until I was already in my Cuddle+ seat). Contrast that with UA, where I am lucky to clear 10% of the time domestic. That said, I don’t care, because I have something like an 80% success record clearing TATL legs to Polaris with PlusPoints, so I don’t mind sitting in a coach seat domestically.
Free whatever is always a terrible idea. Upgrade stickers that could be purchased were a much better idea. Even a 2000 mile upgrade charge iso free would be a better system.
@Chopsticks — Whether it’s true ‘Premium’ economy or not is an important distinction.
When I think of Premium, I think of the recliners, that you’d typically see in domestic US First class on a 737 or a321 in 2-2 configuration. And, those are sometimes on international long-haul, or more broadly, wide-body aircraft with 3 (Economy, Premium Select, DeltaOne, like on DL’s a359) or 4 classes (Economy, Premium, Business, First, like on American’s 773).
However, the front-of-Economy extra-legroom (think, United EconomyPlus, Delta Comfort, American’s Main Cabin Extra, etc.) on both narrow- wide-body aircraft is what we were mostly talking about, where elites can get access for that slightly more expensive seat, often at booking, or with an albeit lame upgrade, and some standby Basic without seat assignments get it, too.
Rarely, is a Basic non-status person getting to First or into a Premium Economy seat on a wide-body international flight. A lot would have to go wrong (or right) for that to happen.
And, where this gets interesting is the intra-Europe ‘Business’ class which is just Economy, 3-3, with middle blocked, and a nicer meal. Oof. How annoying if you’re expecting a recliner…
Alaska seems to be doing an A/B test where the upgrade pricing is either so low you’ll pay for it or so high that you at least get a good laugh out of it. In June, they sold me an upgrade on SFO-PAE for $20. On my upcoming Thanksgiving trip, they’re asking me to pay $545 for 90 minutes on an E175.
Status upgrades are still dead, of course. The biggest impact of Alaska joining OneWorld is that the upgrade list has gone from 10 people per flight to 30+ people per flight.
Can we have an honest conversation about how the vast majority of people are “earning” their treasured “status” in the first place? Might make for an interesting article on its own.
Everyone knows that the vast majority of people with tons of miles and status are either mega-rich, or travel a ton for work.
If you rack up a bazillion miles your employer paid for, that doesn’t make you better than me, or more deserving of perks when you occasionally travel on your own dime (even then you’re usually spending miles).
I’m a tall guy that loves to travel but I don’t have the luxury of work miles. For me, that extra leg room in business class is a luxury I can only occasionally justify. So I’m all FOR airlines opening up these upgrades to everyone in a competitive bidding process. And it’s better for the airline, too. People are still gonna travel for work, and the days of “loyalty” to any particular airline died over a decade ago.
Does that mean that people will stop kvetching about upgrades or more kvetching..
@1990
Back in my high flying days, my then CEO told me that he knew I could usually get upgraded on CO, so wasn’t going to waste his money on my airfare
But, he rarely ever complained about my biz dinners with customers in The Apple. Except one time time I took the entire executive suite from RKO( remember them movie buffs) out to dinner. I had just landed at JFK from Seattle. Took the helicopter to midtown. Their CEO picked me up and we headed to dinner. He hoped I didn’t mind he made rez. Why would he care. I was paying. So we stopped at Four Seasons. Bottom line dinner for five was two thou.
When I got back to Seattle the boss asked to see me. He wanted to know if it was worth it. I told him I would let him know in a day or two. He said he might sign it or not in a day or two.
Turns out the whole RKO senior got on the phone and called my boss. Told him I did a great job in selling them systems for all his theaters. And the contract for five mil was in the mail. They just wanted to have some fun.
My boss signed my expense report. He never gave me FC tix. He said get your upgrade from CO.
It’s not only upgrades. For an upcoming SEA-LAS round trip in early November, I paid $170 each way for first, which was a better fare than Alaska’s so-called “premium” class. The trips are early evening on Sunday with a return late afternoon on Friday, so that was a factor, of course, but still!
@AlanZ — Always bet on more kvetching. Consistent ROI.
On your NYC story, that is epic. You’re a closer! Was it at iconic ‘The Garden’ restaurant in the Four Seasons Midtown (there’s 2 now, one Downtown as well). They had been closed for a while, but recently reopened. Same with the historic original Waldorf, major renovations.
Love the fact that people will stay with delta even if they don’t get their loyalty rewarded (imo) selfishly.
Works twice for me
Can’t have all the upgraders coming to UA and AA
I’m willing for pay $26 to Delta when convenient, expecting nothing else
Don’t much care. I’m in F/J because I paid for it up front. Then, I’d prefer no upgrade deals of upgrading FFs. But, I’m not going to see that. So, go ahead and put deadheading pilots in F. Sell the upgrade. But moving up FFs should be your last move. In a world of 3 (non-SW) real choices, it isn’t the same as 6 (plus AW and SW) of the past. A lot of FFs really have little choice on who to fly, particularly in a world where your competition isn’t giving away upgrades. Since I regularly see there are 20+ people hoping to get the 2 or 3 of 20 unsold F seats, what difference does it make if you sell those seats cheap and disappoint 20 out of 20 rather than 17 out of 20?
> AI and basic business class will help them …
Yes, many-miles-travelled know-nothing-about-IT-guy, do tell us how “AI” is a thing and how this makes a difference.
Your lane is whining about fat Karens and dogs and dirty lounges. Nowhere in your resume does it say anything about you knowing anything about IT. Anyone who calls anything these days “AI” is trying to gin up seed money or a huckster.
Which are you? And I know, you don’t want to “engage” but I’ll do a reddit AMA with you anytime. You can whine about AAL obese FAs, and I can explain (mansplain to you) why there’s no such thing as AI and LLMs are regurgitated spew.
What I find most striking about this is how it reflects a deeper shift in the airline/customer relationship: we’re no longer “loyal” patrons to be courted, but on-demand consumers to be monetized per transaction. The $26 upgrade is a signal that airlines are treating even their highest-spend customers as just another marginal unit of revenue. And that means the loyalty “contract” has effectively been rewritten. And not for the benefit of flyers. Put another way: the calculus has flipped. Instead of asking “How can I keep the best customers happy?” airlines are implicitly asking “How little do I have to do before customers abandon ship?” And so far, the tolerance seems very, very high. In fact, I don’t think there will ever really be a point at which the balance of power will actually shift back given that we have something approaching an oligopoly. If I were advising a young frequent traveler today, I’d say: don’t just evaluate loyalty against past norms, assume those benefits will continue shrinking, and optimize your choices now (alliances, fare flexibility, non-status routes) accordingly.
Nothing new. Qantas has done this for years. I don’t even have a Qantas FF account and was offered an upgrade (which I purchased online) for about $100 for an international flight.
@1990
The real one with the swimming pool.
Who remembers 800 mile segment upgrades?
If you want to fly in the premium cabin, just book it from the get-go.
Complaining about not getting something for free is insane. No wonder the most insufferable people are always the “status” flyers
And if you are in the Upgrade list, they do NOT offer you any of those deals. They also do you the favour of rebooking a bunch of your flights because they decide to cancel routes and move the planes so get shoved onto a far more full flight on the route you did NOT want to take from the route you wanted and paid more for. And even a RUC/GUP it’s gotten mighty dodgy. Their service has also been pretty flipping poor this year too. Once I passed the spend for the year for meeting my regular status tier, I was annoyed enough to book the rest of my flights with other airlines. Sure, the servie will be crappy, but I will pay far less for the pleasure.
You can’t use what you’ve observed on a really short flight to try to prove that all upgrades are dead. For DEN>MSP I am seeing more than $300.
Delta has now offered buy up upgrades up to 45 minutes prior to the flight. I was in ATL on a layover…#2 on FC upgrade list (ATL-SEA) and I could still buy the seat. This wasn’t like this before, as once I was checked in, I couldn’t “upgrade” myself. And I definitely couldn’t do it when I was on a layover sitting at the gate. Bring based out of HSV, I often see $350+ to FC (HSV-ATL and reverse). It’s a 34 minute flight. Delta’s fares are often higher than UAL and AA (MC is sometimes the FC price on UAL, but company doesn’t allow FC no matter how long the flight is). RUC/GUCs have lost their value immensely.