Airlines have gotten much better at monetizing their premium cabins over the years, and that comes in a variety of forms, including increasingly selling upgrades for cash as the departure date approaches, much to the chagrin of elite members trying to take advantage of their upgrade perks.
Upgrade costs can be all over the place, and in some cases, they’ve become pretty attractive. However, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like this before…
In this post:
Delta charges $17.34 for business class upgrade to Asia
A Reddit user shares their experience being offered — and accepting — a $17.34 upgrade from Premium Select (premium economy) to Delta One (business class) on the 15+ hour flight from Atlanta (ATL) to Seoul Incheon (ICN).
As the person explains:
The ticket was changed to the current one on 5-28-26 and flights were LGA (Main B) to ICN via ATL (PS G) and return was HKG (D1 I) to JFK via LAX (D1 I), I being capital i. Upgrade pricing was at $2390.
On 7-13, pricing went north to $2661. It went down to $1812 the next day, the 14th. Some time during the evening on the 14th, I changed the HKG-JFK flight to ICN-JFK via LAX to fly on Korean Air’s 747. That changed the booking codes for return flights to Z while LGA-ATL was repriced to Comfort W and ATL-ICN was repriced to PS A. Upgrade pricing at this time went down to $1671.
It stayed there until this morning at 8:13am, when I went into the seat map for ATL-ICN and saw $17.34. I didn’t cancel out of the screen in case it never returns. Got to the purchase confirmation screen and the charge is also showing on my card.
Currently, I’m about a month and a half out from checking in and flying. I was hunting for the elusive $699 upgrade offer but I’m not complaining at all with $17.34. Book asap, celebrate later.
Was this price the best deal ever, a glitch, or what?
Airlines don’t publish how they come up with their upgrade pricing, though they seem to take into account a massive number of factors. This may include everything from your originally booked fare, to your elite status, to how many seats are remaining and in what fare buckets, to how close to departure it is.
So, was a $17.34 upgrade to Delta One a glitch, or did Delta really mean to offer such an attractive price? On the one hand, originally booked fares may factor into the upgrade cost, and as a result, it’s possible (in theory) that one booked a very expensive premium economy fare, and then the upgrade cost is based on some heavily discounted business class fare.
But what’s more interesting is how the upgrade cost jumps around. It looks like this ticket was changed a couple of times, but then overnight the upgrade cost went from $1,671 to $17.34, so that’s nearly a 99% drop in the cost of the upgrade.
My speculation would be that this was a glitch of some sort, which is to say that the upgrade algorithm sorta broke, and used bad logic. Now, this should of course still be honored, since upgrade pricing is dynamic, and if you want to have a very complicated system, that can go both ways. But as a customer, talk about a huge win!
It’s a good reminder to frequently check upgrade pricing, because you never know what you might find.
Bottom line
A Delta customer was offered a $17.34 upgrade to business class on a flight from Atlanta to Seoul Incheon, which must be some sort of a record. Upgrade costs can jump around. In this case, the upgrade cost went from $1,671 to $17.34 from one minute to the next, a nearly 99% drop!
What do you make of this Delta One upgrade cost? Have you ever seen anything like this before?
What a steal. Has to be a glitch (somebody forgot to verify the pricing floor or something). You couldn't even have a decent cocktail at his departure airport for that price....
I connected hard disk pricing to price offers on a price comprising site once . Smart competitors lowered her price to 1€ I got 19 orders. over nite and went bust . These things happen .
yeah...this person is stupid....they probably will be refunded the upgrade and put back in their original seat.....why the need to share with everyone everything nowadays!
It's possible that dozens of seats had been booked by a corporation who decided to lay off all those employees, so there suddenly were many empty seats.
I've seen Qantas offering "sale" fares in first class that were $1000 cheaper than a fully-flexible biz ticket on the same flight. Sometimes you just get lucky.
Did you read the actual details? You're omitting some major details, which is that the person had already paid over $4.2k for the base ticket.
It's one thing to pay $500 for a ticket and upgrade for $17 and another to pay over $4k and then upgrade one leg for $17.
If that’s the case, it would probably be better to outright purchase J, because often paid upgrades like that retain their original fare class for earning points/status.
“I don’t make the rules…I just play the game.”
Of course the original fare paid is the key factor here.
If you read the Reddit comments, that's exactly what happened.
The original fare was $4500.
$4500 for one-way Premium Select and one-way Delta One is entirely reasonable.
I can see a scenario where the ATL-ICN flight has nearly sold out (or even sold) out the economy & premium economy sections, then the airline may offer a great upgrade price for their frequent flyers instead of giving away free upgrades AND even save some money to not have to offer Y & W passengers to give up their seats. Thus, I am very curious about that flight load at the moment. Having said...
I can see a scenario where the ATL-ICN flight has nearly sold out (or even sold) out the economy & premium economy sections, then the airline may offer a great upgrade price for their frequent flyers instead of giving away free upgrades AND even save some money to not have to offer Y & W passengers to give up their seats. Thus, I am very curious about that flight load at the moment. Having said all that, it does look like a glitch. And what I take away from this is to keep checking for the upgrade offer, this algorithm thing just might give you an unexpected offer at any moment.
Sharing my recent experience on upgrade offer on AA. I flew IAH-MIA-BGI and then returned with POS-MIA-IAH on Main for just over $900 (and at the time, First/Biz class is ~$2300) [Note: I bought the tix about 3 weeks before the trip]. Right after the purchase, I went back to check the upgrade offer, and it was broken down by segment and when I added them all up, they totaled to be the same First/Biz class price. I also noticed the IAH-MIA-BGI flights are pretty full upfront, so I basically focus on the return trip to see if I can find a good deal. About 3 days before the return trip, the upgrade costs were around $360 for POS-MIA and $110 for MIA-IAH, compared to the original offer for both segments total at over $500. The offer went up by ~$200 total the next day but went back down right before the 24 hours check-in window began. Then I checked in on the app right after the 24 hour mark, and the offer dropped to about $350 total for both segments, that's the lowest price I have seen since I bought the tickets. Also, at check-in, I see two open seats upfront for POS-MIA and 4 seats open for MIA-IAH.
It is shocking Ben is even asking if this a glitch. Now the only person who would advertise to the world a fare error prior to travel is someone who values the attention more than the upgrade experience. Delta is now aware of this and will if it has not already cancelled the transaction. But don't feel bad for the passenger: reddit and this blog gave them what they wanted most.
The benefits of AI pricing algorithmic chaos!
Risking the deal of a lifetime for some imaginary internet cool points.
Some people need to learn to keep quiet..
I hope DL doesnt close this rather frequent glitch now :(
Well, we just need to hope that Delta's "people" don't frequent these blogs... (oohh shhhhi..)
If this had happened to me, I would simply not tell a single person until *after* I'd taken the flight.
Indeed. But some people crave the attention and can't control themselves.
It used to be that if you booked very far in advance (basically, when the schedule was published) it was cheaper to book business class than economy on Avianca' short domestic flights. My very first business class experience was therefore a domestic sub-2-hour flight in Colombia when I was there on a trip that I booked very far in advance.
Back then, even the cheapest business class ticket included lounge access, 2x 32kg bagage...
It used to be that if you booked very far in advance (basically, when the schedule was published) it was cheaper to book business class than economy on Avianca' short domestic flights. My very first business class experience was therefore a domestic sub-2-hour flight in Colombia when I was there on a trip that I booked very far in advance.
Back then, even the cheapest business class ticket included lounge access, 2x 32kg bagage allowance and Avianca still had a 'proper' domestic business class seats, not just the blocked middle seat they have now. It was still nothing extraordinary, but given that this was my first time experiencing anything that wasn't the cheapest of economy class seats, I was quite impressed nonetheless.
AV does not have a blocked middle seat. There's a proper console between seats that neither passengers nor crew can remove. And the actual seat bottoms are much wider (and shaped differently) than in coach. Backrests are also wider than the one people keep confusing with a "middle seat."
It is still cheaper to book business class than classic or flexi economy fares in a few domestic routes. Lounge access is still included (assuming you're...
AV does not have a blocked middle seat. There's a proper console between seats that neither passengers nor crew can remove. And the actual seat bottoms are much wider (and shaped differently) than in coach. Backrests are also wider than the one people keep confusing with a "middle seat."
It is still cheaper to book business class than classic or flexi economy fares in a few domestic routes. Lounge access is still included (assuming you're departing from airports with AV lounges).
These Tens of Dollars upgrades will surely make Delta bazillions of profits (and gain LAX market share), bestest good airline ever!!!
$ 17.34 is too expensive for what you get .
Even if someone hates Delta, this nonsensical statement is objectively false. A Delta One seat on an of its aircraft is going to be a better flying experience and offer much more room.
@HaroldW
..."this nonsensical statement is objectively false."
Heck, while you're at it, just keep piling up your redundancies. Maybe like "This nonsensical statement is objectively false and fake and untrue and inaccurate and fallacious."
Clickbait nonsense. The /r poster never confirmed that the ticket was reissued. Until that occurs there's no upgrade.
Ten bucks says someone is in for a very unwelcome surprise come T-24 when they attempt to checkin.
Maybe it's changed but back in 2014 when mobile phone apps were still a newish thing, Delta had an app for Windows-powered Nokia phones. The app had a known glitch that confirmed you into Delta business class. I had this happen to me. Tokyo-Narita to Hong Kong and the return. The upgrade processed and your app showed you as confirmed. Delta ended up honoring this.
We've seen under $20 upgrades domestically. So it's not inconceivable that the system somehow produced an under $20 international upgrade.
Pure speculation on my part, but would not surprise me if it was supposed to be $1734 but something broke and somehow I got listed $17.34. Given that it was previously 1600 something dollars, it seems to track but again pure speculation.
That is my guess. Bad decimal placing
Definitely a glitch; huge win for the passenger, IF Delta honors it. If this is all real, I’d’ve kept quiet about it, not shared on Reddit, etc., because, especially if the flight hasn’t happened yet, now Delta may ‘make an example of it’ and ‘fix’ the ‘glitch’ by ‘refunding’ the ‘paid upgrade.’
Was also thinking this. Especially given the fact that OP posted their entire itinerary and changes leading up to this final upgrade
Sharing that much detail, sorta feels like OP wanted 'cred' from the r/delta 'fanboys' more-so than to actually enjoy the upgrade. As a fellow flyer, I hope they actually do get to enjoy it!
Seems easy that DL could run a search for that price point/purchase date on that route and figure out who they sold it to. Damn fools doxxing themselves.
You know TD is contacting DL in any way he can so that they can extract the highest revenue per passenger.
However, I don't really think this is a glitch. Fare classes, time of booking, etc, can result in some weird pricing discrepancies. I've seen business price out at cheaper than premium plus or whatever DL calls it. They know when the corporate bookings come in and price accordingly.
That’s where corporate travel booking platforms really suck. Like, in those cases, the software should recognize the bad deal, and allow beneficial exceptions. I get it, OPM, but, still…if they’re paying, might as well them pay less and you get a recliner or lie-flat instead of a mere Exit Row or middle seat.
I would not have publicised this (as the Reddit user) until I was on the plane or the offer was revoked, whichever is worse.
They SHOULD honour this, but given how American companies have a habit of not always doing what they should I wouldn't increase the chance of them noticing it.
Incredible deal if it's honoured though
“given how American companies have a habit of not always doing what they should”
*deepest of sighs*