[wbeeman]

I have been trying for more than a year to use my considerable SkyMiles to book an upgrade on an international flight on Delta. I have now concluded that this is impossible. The last time I tried this, I was told that there was no upgrade ability, but I could be wait listed. In order to be wait listed, I would have to book in "M" "B" or "Y" class. When I asked if I could get a refund back to the lower economy fare, I was told that I would have to re-book with a change penalty. Looking up the higher economy class fares, I was astonished to see that they were actually higher than the business class fares (Y-class was 100% higher). When I complained to the agent, she said that in five years she had never been able to book an international upgrade, and that in her opinion it was a scam. The upgrades didn't exist.

I did some additional research on two websites that post travel-agent information concerning availability of seats, awards and upgrades. I was shocked to get the following message:
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Changes to Delta Upgrade Visibility

Delta has unfortunately chosen to remove all of their upgrade inventory from the GDS reservation systems, and as such it is no longer available in our site at this time. This is after previously being told by Delta over the course of many years that upgrade inventory would continue to be made available. We believe that this applies to all those who use a GDS, such as travel agents, and is not unique to our site. As such all Flight Alerts for the affected upgrade classes will be set to Expired as to not count against your active alert limit. Please note that all other Delta information in our site is unaffected by this change.


We agree with the sentiments of our customers that ultimately this does more harm than good to their best customers and suggest that you contact Delta and express to them how you feel about the ability to see, evaluate and use these various upgrade inventories and the value it adds to your elite status with Delta. Please use the following link to email them.
(Delta email link)

As always, thank you for your continued support.
(Travel Site Team)

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I find this situation outrageous. I have mailed Delta to express my anger at this policy, and to tell them that I think they are perpetuating fraud on their SkyMiles customers.

I hope others will also write.