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…