[Matt_FLL]

I totally understand that you are disappointed, and I’m sorry to hear that you paid a higher fare and could not upgrade. Keep in mind, there are some business travelers and wealthy people who are willing to pay thousands of dollars for first or business class on that route. The airline is smart; they will set aside a certain number of seats for those people, only. You cannot book one of those seats using miles. Sound annoying? Yes, in theory, but those passengers are subsidizing your seat, which is why your seat CAN be so cheap (cheap, as in, using miles).

The demand for a mileage upgrade will always exceed the available number of those capacity-controlled “upgradable” seats. So basically, it would become a first come/first serve situation—which many people found unfair. After all, should someone with an economy ticket who paid a fraction of your economy ticket be able to upgrade his or her seat using the SAME number of miles, just because they booked first? Many frequent flyers find that to be unfair, so the airlines responded. In Delta’s case, you cannot upgrade using miles if you booked one of the cheapest fares (booked in an L, U, T, or E fare). All other tickets are eligible. Problem solved… kind of—because the demand is still quite strong, and I still find it hard to book an upgradeable seat. Perhaps they should make it even more restrictive!

And I think you’ll agree with me here based on your complaint. It sounds that you’ve purchased a more expensive economy ticket, even though a more deeply discounted one was available… in hopes of getting a mileage upgrade. However, you still weren’t upgraded because the demand of those “upgradable” seats exceeded the supply. So perhaps Delta and other carriers ought to make us buy even more expensive economy tickets in order to upgrade. At the end of the day, airlines hardly turn a profit (hence the recent bankruptcies—even Delta!), so in order to just break even, they’ve got to put limits on the amount of available upgradeable seats. Good luck next time… just for reading this, you deserve a free upgrade