Chaos @ DAL
 

I cannot get an answer from DAL as they have outsourced all the help in an effort to remain alive.

I have a SkyMi Award Trav Certificate for 30000 mi which I had planned to use to go to HI, but, in March '04, DAL raised the req to 35K MI and no seats are avail at that level anytime - some at 70K -

My question: if I buy a coach seat, and there are many first class seats empty when I buy, am I guaranteed an upgrade with my 30K (code D510) Certificate? The code is for a 15K each way upgrade.

No one at DAL seems to know.

Many thanks.

M

M

The very polite folks in India, etc. are nice, but clueless.

The Frequest Flyer program rules have gotten so complicated, it's hard to tell which end is up, outsourced phone operators or not. My experience with American has been that, for the heavy-discount coach tickets I have been getting recently, upgrades are not available at all, not with FF miles, cash, credit card, nothing.

Firstly, have you purchased the ticket yet? Can you go through the Delta Airlines website to do it? I would hope they'd give you the option to redeem the award during the reservation process.

Answer - no and no, since I cannot get DAL to comment if I may upgrade after purchasing the coach ticket.
M

Never had any problem with AA!
M

First, I doubt you can just use an award certificate for something else, even for the same # of miles. But I'm not sure. Therefore...

Second, you should post the question on the Delta board on flyertalk.com. People there can help you better than here for very specific questions.

Third, keep in mind that the DL award certificate has expiration dates (one-year after issue), according to its website. So, make sure you redeposit your miles back to your account if you can't use it in time.

rkkwan,
thanks, but that's a no brainer.
M

Are you saying that you redeemed a 30,000 mile HI coach award certificate and now you want to know if you can use it for an upgrade instead? If so, then the answer is no. You'll need to redeposit the award and get it reissued.

BTW I believe only Y/B/M fares are upgradeable, so you can't buy the lowest coach fare. And just because there are many FC seats for sale, doesn't mean that you're guaranteed an upgrade. The best thing to do is to check for upgrade availability at the time you purchase your ticket. You may find that buying a discounted FC fare makes more sense than buying an ungradeable coach fare + spending miles.

The most knowledgeable agents at Skymiles are the ones working at the partner award desk. I've never gotten an agent in India (and I totally agree with you about India CSR's) by choosing the partner award option. I know your question doesn't concern an airline partner but I bet they would help you out if you explained the situation.

<i>as posted by nw_lgb-ca</i>.

<b>My experience with American has been that, for the heavy-discount coach tickets I have been getting recently, upgrades are not available at all, not with FF miles, cash, credit card, nothing.</b>

?????

Just upgraded an N fare(deep discount) to London. Did the same about a month ago and again in late August on a package bought from www.site59.com.

AA releases &quot;C&quot; inventory (mileage, cert upgrade) every so often. If the upgrade is not available at the time of ticketing you have to put yourself on a waitlist and in most cases (100% for me) the upgrade will clear.

Of course now the mileage upgrade will also cost you $250 each way plus the miles.

AAFF: And that's why I used the disclaimer &quot;In my experience...&quot;. My latest experiences have indeed been on no-upgrade discounted seats. Don't know why. Then again, Coach suits me fine; the last time I flew First, I was cashing in a buttload of FF miles. And for the record, I <i>like</i> American's First Class service.

mikemo...You dont say exactly where you are going...But, a discounted First Class fare is going to be roughly $150 more than the least expensive fare you can upgrade with miles, and that's r/t.There's your no brainer!