I originally had a reservation ATL-DL-IAH-CO-SEA-DL-ATL. Today I cancelled the IAH-SEA-ATL leg through my agency and booked the return IAH-DL-IAH. As soon as it was completed, I went to the DL site and requested an upgrade. It was processed right away since the travel was for tomorrow, I am GM as was booked in Q class. I viewed a seat map and picked a seat in First Class (1C). I am now in IAH and went to view my itineraries on delta.com and noticed that the IAH-ATL segment is now showing as Coach and the upgrade status shows Request Only. What the heck happened to my first class seat?

 

Marshall bumpage?

 

Sounds like the name of the new spy thriller where I travel by BMW to the airport and eat Godiva chochies in B/E! All while saving the world by 4pm and completing the much anticipated Delta Travel Tools webpage!

 

You requested the upgrade before your trip was actually ticketed, there's no point in requesting upgrades before your trip is ticketed, as you found out they just go away when you do that.

 

Yes, I guess that was the case. I won't be doing that again, lesson learned...

 

You can't request an upgrade online before a ticket is ticketed. It says "Contact Delta". If you call them and you are way outside your window it's ok to go ahead and get them to put you on the list though. Just don't let the upgrade process before calling them. But you said you were able to do it online, so that means it was ticketed already.

 

Not always true, especially if it was ticketed/arranged through a third-party (i.e., a corporate travel agency). I have lost my upgrades a few times as well by requesting it (and having it process) before my travel office actually ticketed the thing.

 

I book my travel through a corporate travel agency (amex) and until they physically ticket it the upgrade status online shows "Contact Delta". I know when they ticket it because they send me my itenierary at the same time, so I know to go ask for my upgrade. However I am able to call and get on the list, and yes it will screw up your upgrade and make life difficult on your agency if you upgrade before they ticket. Maybe DL has changed their system this year to check for that? But I've only been upgrading flights reguarlly since the beginning of 04, so I'm not sure. I just know it's impossible for me to upgrade online when it's booked but not ticketed.

 

Why didn't you print a boarding pass immediately since you were within 24h? It sure would be less likely they would get you back to coach, and if they did, they'd probably offer you some kind of compensation.

 

Regardless of how it happened, I got upgraded a few hours before the flight and ended up in 1c IAH-ATL. Despite the conflicting posts describing what happened, I'll make sure in the future that the change gets ticketed prior to submitting the request. Because this itinerary was a change to an existing reservation rather than a new itinerary, that may have been the reason I was allowed to upgrade prior to ticketing. Who knows.

 

Because I am an idiot?

 

Next time print it out. This helped me once and the GA said you get the U/G!

 

I've only had this problem with G/Z (Miles, PMUs) upgrades. V/X (Segment) upgrades seem to stick for me, even if reserved before ticketing.

If you have a travel agent involved, make sure to advise the individual that you've requested and confirmed an upgrade directly with the airline. Despite what many will tell you, it's definitely possible to ticket with the V/X in there. It's also possible with the G/Z in the record, but takes creating a phantom record to do so (unless you're willing to surrender your PMU or miles at time of booking, which I've recommended avoiding for a series of reasons, which I laid out in other threads)..

If your upgrade goes away due to T/A error, call DL immediately once you discover this --- I had this once and DL said they saw my upgrade was deleted, and although there were no upgrades available any longer, they overbooked the upgrade class to re-confirm me.