A passenger wonders why he received a “crazy” upgrade offer to business class on an upcoming trip. The answer is quite simple: supply and demand.
Delta Air Lines Upgrade Pricing: There Is Not Necessarily Correlation Between Distance, Product, And Price
A Delta flyer on Reddit wonders why his “upgrade” pricing was so crazy. On the Delta app, he was offered:
- $599 or 59,500 miles to upgrade from economy class to Delta One business class from Seoul Incheon (ICN) to Atlanta (ATL)
- The 7,152-mile flight is 13 hours, 30 minutes long and operated by an Airbus A350-900 that includes suites with lie-flat beds and closing doors
- $1299 or 129,900 miles to upgrade from economy class to first class from Atlanta to Miami (MIA)
- The 594-mile flight is 2 hours and is operated by a Boeing 757-200 with recliner chairs
While that may seem bewildering to an occasional flyer, there’s nothing confusing or crazy about it all.
Without even looking at how full the flights are, it becomes clear: the Seoul to Atlanta flight had many unsold seats in the business class cabin that would have remained empty or gone to standby customers. Meanwhile, the Atlanat to Miami was nearly full in the front cabin and Delta was hoping to sell it to someone who was not price sensitive and may have just needed one of the last seats.
There is no correlation between the price of an upgrade and the distance or aircraft type of the flight. We may not fully understand the algorithm, but an upgrade on each flight is dynamically priced according to a number of factors and the result will be cases like this: the sort of upgrade costs that seem crazy.
An upgrade on a flight 6x as long with a lie-flat bed? Sure, it’s a no-brainer. But as Delta looks to maximize revenue, it’s also apparent that it charges what it can for an upgrade and it will charge a lot more for the last premium cabin seat on a short-haul flight than it might for a suite on a longhaul flight that would otherwise go empty.
Ultimately, this is a reminder to keep an eye on the Delta app or delta.com for upgrade pricing…there are still good deals to be had (sadly, not when paying with SkyMiles though…).
“Sadly, when not using SkyMiles though…”
Although the cash value of the redemption is about 1 cent, I would argue that 59,990 miles to upgrade from ATL to ICN *is* a great deal. Would similar upgrade options be available for 60,000 miles in the American or United programs?
IIRC That’s an upgrade from Premium Select, but still.
I’ve had a $375 offer from ATL-AMS on an A350 before (from PS)
And most recently, a pair of $749 and $999 offers from ATL to Ireland/UK. But I took neither because I had an empty row in Economy to myself, flight is too short and 767’s are tight and crappy. On the ATL-DUB they upgraded me at the gate for D1 anyway.
Tip – If aspiring for a relatively cheap D1 upgrade, check app everyday, literally every day, and if you feel it might be wort it, book it ASAP, it can go to $2700 in the next day.
I partially lied; on the ATL-DUB the main cabin and PS was packed full, while D1 was IIRC relatively empty, so I was able to snag an operational upgrade,
When are you gonna write about Eric Adams and Turkish Airlines? THAT would generate clicks!
I agree. But in the context of he got caught doing what most every politician is doing. And SCOTUS.
What I’ve been doing is searching cheapest class flight, booking that flight in economy (assuming economy is priced similarly to other flights). Then looking at the upgrade offer post booking. Been finding great rates of ~$170 upgrade JFK>SAN
Interesting. This never happened to me on international flights with Delta but I have family in Brazil and they always score huge upgrades from economy to business class for around $500 on Emirates, LATAM and Lufthansa. By the time they go to check in for their flights these offers show up and it is usually a non brainer. Delta for some reason has way too many non revenue flying on Delta One. I have seen many people that suddenly get into Delta One and they all know the FAs and chat for a long time. I have never seen an empty seat on Delta One international flights.