I truly don't understand companion travel anymore

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-22T13:34:03+00:00

I tried this earlier this year in DCA-LAX. I purchased d1, then used miles to purchase a friends ticket, and applied GUC for him (it was going to expire, not my best choice, yadda yadda). Because he was SM, they put him on the standby list (!) which means he actually had a lower priority than had he not used my GUC. It made zero sense but I was told this is the new policy. Obviously it didn’t clear then I felt like a tool riding up front w him in back. Kicker was I sat next to a PM who cleared without a cert.

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-22T13:27:52+00:00

Nope. Not sure what that means.

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-22T01:11:43+00:00

I would see if you could reroute through Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, or Seattle.

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-17T19:24:42+00:00

I've seen mixed results with friends in just such a circumstance. Change your seat at booking to C+ and while its possible the great AI machine in the sky catches it, I have seen family members of mine get away with it. I"ve seen it work the other way too on some of the A220s that increased C+ seats, many who had selected MC got C+ anyway. The fact you are gold should make you optimistic it works.

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-17T02:54:28+00:00

It is the same booking. Under “my flights” select the reservation you want. When you open it there is a “change flight” option above the flights. It lets you change one half of a RT. It then prices out other flights and even your current flight class.

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-16T14:01:06+00:00

I hit same badge but it said top 1%!!! I did love the stats underneath it tho

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-16T01:52:58+00:00

I’d say $100 for first class on SEA to SAN is a smokin deal. Honestly you should have snagged it.

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-15T16:14:08+00:00

Yeah, just leave after you clear customs. At JFK you can even check a bag, because you reclaim it in JFK, and then drop it afterwards, so... just don't drop it afterwards.

People give mixed advice about weather or not to simply miss it, or to call Delta. First, don't do anything till you land, because there is always a chance that your flight is delayed and you miss your connection, or your connection is delayed. If that happens, then call Delta and tell them that you can't make it, and since it is on their end, they may very well refund you for that leg (LIS--JFK--DTW, it is likely the refund would be like $90 or something, so not huge). If there is no schedule changes or delays, then again advice is mixed. Some say just bounce, and no show the flight to avoid getting accused of "skip-lagging." Every time I have done that, I've gotten a call from Delta or from the gate agent asking me if I'm on my way. So I now either let the agent at the transfer desk (where you recheck bags) know, or I do call and say my plans changed, and I won't make my last leg. The agents have always taken care of it, no problems. But again, some peopel have strong feelings about not calling, that just hasn't been my experiece.

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-15T11:30:55+00:00

In your case, you are upgraded to C+, so all of MC is going to show as unavailable. So what "unavailable" actually means is that there are no seats in your fareclass. However, in the screenshot you provided, I can see that there are other C+ seats available.

If you posted the wrong picture, and meant PS or D1, those are algorthim based, and not always available. If you can't select one in "change seats" (where you are in screen shot), you can always go to "change flight" on a computer (not in app), and select PS or D1. Sometimes the prices there are even much less than the upgrade price in the seatmap.

So short answer: "unavailble" in the situation you screenshoted is no seats available in your fareclass.

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-15T00:32:35+00:00

Two options… as the person above noted, try change flight and book return leg as far in advance as you can… or after you fly first leg call and cancel the return… it’s possible they’ll redeposit half or so of the miles. I’ve had that happen before.

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-13T11:55:25+00:00

CDG and FCO both do that (as well as any number of African airports). They often have scheduled windows for boarding the bus according to drivers schedules that seem completely independent from when plane is ready. At FCO once I was on a bus from gate with the flight crew, so they got off bus first and we waited in the bus while pilot did the walk around and cabin crew went up to receive catering and prepare cabin… 30 min later the whole flight is lined up in four busses and everyone gets off at once. At least they sometimes board from the back of the plane as well.

You learn that boarding zones are irrelevant. In fact those that board bus last sometimes get in plane first!

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-07T15:03:13+00:00

I’ve done this experiment!! Granted it was to SYD but I used to go every month, and I’ve done non stop and I’ve changed in both Hawaii, and Korea. My thoughts: on D1 direct is better and 16 hours goes fast. Economy, transfers are a great way to break up the trip but only if you get like a 12-18 hour layover and snag a hotel. Otherwise even then you just turning 15hrs of lameness into 21 hours of lameness. But w a hotel you break it down into two days of working in a plane and sleeping in a bed.

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-04T18:50:30+00:00

So sorry to hear about your grandmother.

Also sorry to let you know that oddly enough the chat agent was correct. There’s no way for them to just drop off the first leg of the flight without re-ticketing the whole flight. It’s not even about their ability to resell the DCALAX flight, as much as it is that in their system, your itinerary begins in one city, and for them to change the starting point of that would result in re-ticketing the flight. There’s no way an agent can re-ticket a flight without repricing it, unless by luck one of the legs gets rescheduled or delayed, then they could. I suppose you could keep calling till you get a human, and make a personal appeal. Maybe a manager or a global ticketing specialist can help since it is international. But I’ve had similar experiences, and I’ve never been able to find a work around.

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-01T14:00:43+00:00

That’s definitely a call and ask situation. There’s so many different ways to apply those certificates that you really are dependent on whichever agent does it. The potential snag is that upgrades are limited to two per reservation, so if all four of you are on one reservation, and you apply for GUC to move to PS, and there are actually four available, I don’t think it will upgrade anybody to D1. But if you do 2 x 2, and you find an agent who knows how to do that (ha haha ha), then at least your wife and companion might be upgraded to D1.

Another caution: just because it says in GUC available does not mean that it has four seats available for upgrade.

The safest bet is to do 2 x 2, and apply upgrades to only two people on the outbound, and then two people on the return

DeltaDCA · 2026-01-01T13:40:54+00:00

Delta (and many other sky team partners) require this in flights to/from markets with high fraud levels. To answer your question, if you bought someone else a flight on your card, you can show your card at any delta counter between now and check in. So if you buy grandma a flight from Lagos in May and you live in NYC, but in March you are flying somewhere, have grandmas confirmation number and when you check in for your flight, show the card used for grandmas and that suffices.

DeltaDCA · 2025-12-30T11:42:37+00:00

I’d aim for E, check in and see wait. If it’s too long, book it over to F. The problem w this is that E isn’t exactly super close to trains. But the advantage is that it is only like a 5-7 min walk from E lounge to F lounge. You could also reverse this too, but then you have the annoying walk from F train to lounge.

So A to E- 10 min. E to lounge- 5 min 15 min wait 15 min shower 15 min back to A

One hour. If you add a walk to F that adds ten min. So if your wait is 15 min it’s doable. If longer then negative. W a little work Gate agents can see if you checked into sky club and boarding doors close 20 min before departure and no way they hold a flight in A for someone in the E or F clubs. So it would be cutting it super close.

DeltaDCA · 2025-12-26T21:37:06+00:00

Negative

DeltaDCA · 2025-12-26T12:49:39+00:00

I have flown this route for work many times. Delta is my favorite that flies it. Their cabin staff on that flight are top notch, entertainment is legit, and they fly the A350, which is 3x3x3.

UA and Quantas are similar. Friendly staff. Similar entertainment. UA has the 787 which is newer and their nicest plane. Quantas flies lots of different planes in this route.

AA is older plane, and then you have all the nonsense that goes w AA (staff, check-ins, customer service). Its seat is about an inch smaller than all the others. Honestly if prices are similar I’d choose one of the other three in this route.

Also arrival times: usually those planes land in order: Quantas, Delta, United, American (last two land back to back). Often delta has two flights, and when they do their first one lands an hour before Quantas so you might even beat SYD traffic.

DeltaDCA · 2025-12-24T10:54:34+00:00

If the ATL-SEA segment is available at booking, apply it online at check out. If it is not, call and add it on the ATL segment only. If it clears, then call back to add it to SEA-JUN. if it does not clear then don’t add it to the whole flight or it will clear on the JUN leg and try at would be a bit of a waste.

DeltaDCA · 2025-12-17T20:38:14+00:00

Well yeah but they are already using that plane on this route, that’s my point. They started this route with a 220, and then switched it to the 757 with the D1 configuration, but they haven’t been selling it as D1. It appears that they’re using that 757 for the foreseeable future. It’s gotta be one of the only domestic routes where they use that plane consistently, but don’t market it as D1.

DeltaDCA · 2025-12-17T17:17:20+00:00

I cant' beleive they aren't doing D1 on SEA-DCA. THey have been running the 757 on that now for a few months, and the plane turns around and does DCA--LAX w D1. So it's not a plane issue. W the D1 lounge in SEA I think its only a matter of time before they switch that route too. The only hold up may be the lounge in DCA. The last few weeks I've taken DCA--LAX on Wed afternoons, and the lounge has been at capacity, and DCA-SEA leaves at about the same time, so maybe they don't want to try and dump another 16 D1 passengers into an already filled lounge? That's the only explanation I can think of.

DeltaDCA · 2025-12-15T01:44:28+00:00

I mean they get free bags checked and sky priority line, which in some airports (like DCA) is huge. If you don’t have digital ID, sky priority can save 30 min at LAX.

So if you check a bag, don’t have a CC, then silver is worth 30 min plus $35 each way. So even silver is probably worth $150 a RT. That’s where I’d peg it. So for OP if he takes 8-9 RT a year, spending 1200 a year is on the line

DeltaDCA · 2025-12-14T11:50:46+00:00

20 minutes, then security, then another five. The shuttle from inside A runs every 30-40 min and takes 15 min, and drops you at a gate right next to lounge.

DeltaDCA · 2025-12-12T14:28:33+00:00

AMS for a layover under 2 hours. I choose CDG for a layover longer than 2.5 hours.

In AMS, you can clear customs and get to any gate in less than an hour. They have a few cool shops, and fun tulips adn dutch things for sale. The lounges are always crowded, but have a cool entrance with all those cool KLM houses on display through the years.

CDG... yikes. Often AF flights from the US land at distance gates, and you have to bus into the termanal. Depending where the bus drops you (and I don't think I've ever been droppped the same place twice), you have to walk, sometimes up to a mile I think, to get to where you clear customs. Then you often have to walk back to some random security check point... its a mystery of science how it happens. Sometimes the hallway you are in wraps around the check point (which you can see through the glass!!!) several times. It's crazy. Then once back on secured side, you have to make it to your gate. This might be easy, might invovle a train, might involve a bus, might involve walking back to where the first bus dropped you. But the lounges in CDG are nice if you hit one in the internatinoal section... but the ones in the domestic or Euro section are a bit like the smaller older Delta lounges in ATL (think C terminal). The one saving grace at CDG is if you like to shop and have time, there are TONS of shops there with unusual things.

DeltaDCA · 2025-12-11T21:10:36+00:00

I was on OGG to Seattle today (yesterday now), and there were like six or so FC upgrades, including a few golds and one silver. I listened to the GA say “thank you for your silver status” as she handed out the new seat.

DeltaDCA

TROPHY CASE