Here's how free upgrades for frequent flyers work with Delta
In the United States, company loyalty programs are serious things, compared to those made in the EU it is like [...]
Delta
SkyTeam
LAX
United States of America
In the United States, company loyalty programs are serious things, compared to those made in the EU is like comparing a Serie A team with a Lega Pro team.
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Companies make money in spades through their loylaty schemes, they sell points to banks, to rental companies, to whoever. Especially travelers try in every way to be at the highest level, it is no accident that mileage runs were born on this side of the Atlantic.
Upgrades for everyone in the U.S.
One of the main benefits for American travelers are class upgrades when they fly to the U.S. and beyond. Basically all major American loyalty programs give away the best unsold seats to loyal customers. Beyond that each program has rules on how to extend this benefit on long-haul flights as well, such as American Airlines.
Until recently, the "race" to upgrade was shown on gate screens, now tuto si è transferred to the app. From the screen of the cell phone in an absolutely transparent way one can see the position on the waiting list for a better place, a kind of gamification where, however, the user can do nothing but wait since it is managed by algorithms and not by human beings.
My experience aboard Delta
Did you get your flight cancelled, miss your connection, land late?
You could get up to 600€ compensation per person
I recently flew with Delta from Los Angeles to Sacramento., a 90-minute flight, and I experienced firsthand how the system works.
Important premise, I have no status with Delta I do not collect Skypesos as the points in the Skymiles program are defined. I do, however, have the level Elite+ thanks to my Flying Blue card.
I checked in and immediately, without needing to request anything I saw the queue situation for upgrades. In a very transparent way the seats available for upgrades at that time are shown. Business or Comfort+.
All passengers in the upgrade race see their position in the rankings. The nice thing is. it's all in the making, based on tickets sold last minute, passengers changing travel plans, etc.
In fact, all companies give away the best unsold seats to loyal passengers, freeing up the back seats for wait-listed and last-minute customers. Frankly, I was stupid to see myself in that ranking. since I don't have status with Delta I didn't think my Air France card would get me that high.
My race to upgrade
My ticket was as cheap as possible, a 90-minute flight with no need to check baggage or anything else, a benefit I had anyway because of the status.
Checking in, I saw that I had 6 people in front of me compared to 2 business class seats and 7 premium economy seats, in the morning I had dropped three positions and had relegated to 9th.
At 4 p.m., with my flight leaving at 5 p.m. about, I had plummeted 10th position. My hopes were practically zero.
40 minutes later I received a notification on my phone that my wallet boarding pass had updated, opened the app and saw that I had been promoted to comfort+.
Looking at the final standings of this sort of horse race. I was the first one out of business class, which in the U.S. means a real seat different from the economy seat. As you can see my status would have put me in "first," but unfortunately there were only two free seats in business.
Now all I had to do was wait the 20 minutes for the boarding gate to open to find out whether I had hit the jackpot or just the jackpot. I ended up in the first row of Delta Comfort+, Delta's premium economy, same service as economy, but lots of extra leg room.
In conclusion
Excellent system, transparent and challenge-proof. The rules are set upstream and the computer just applies the instructions, there is no human intervention at any stage. The fact that everything is now on the app and no longer on the screens makes it even easier without having to go to the gate too early to see how you are doing and not having to request anything is also easy for us humble European travelers unaccustomed to this VIP treatment.
I wish there were in Europe...
