Upgrade seat question

[sunlover5]

We purchased a flight to Barcelona for this fall. Price went crazy low so we just purchased main cabin. Seats for comfort, plus, etc.  ( I know airlines have different names for these seats) but do they ever changes prices???  
 

Thank you so much for any information!!!!

[Zach1213]

18 minutes ago, sunlover5 said:

We purchased a flight to Barcelona for this fall. Price went crazy low so we just purchased main cabin. Seats for comfort, plus, etc.  ( I know airlines have different names for these seats) but do they ever changes prices???  
 

Thank you so much for any information!!!!

 

To clarify - in most cases, those seats (that are generally just extra legroom) are not technically considered an upgrade in my experience. Once you start looking at Premium Economy, which is different, you start getting in to what is really considered to be an "upgrade". 

 

Anyways, in this case, I believe the prices remain relatively consistent. There may be fluctuations up or down, I am not sure, but it's definitely not like ticket prices that are constantly changing. I find these extra legroom seat prices to be more-or-less static in pricing. 

[cruisinqt]

There are a limited amount of comfort plus, economy plus, and other similar seats on most airplanes. Therefore, I’ve found that they sell out fairly quickly and rarely drop in price like normal seats do. 

[chatdad]

They do change (like any other seat category) however as there are limited number more likely to go up than down.  Some airlines (Delta for one) may offer 'buy ups' for the higher category seats so keep watching your booking.  

 

[tj_shopper]

On 1/27/2023 at 9:38 AM, sunlover5 said:

We purchased a flight to Barcelona for this fall. Price went crazy low so we just purchased main cabin. Seats for comfort, plus, etc.  ( I know airlines have different names for these seats) but do they ever changes prices???  
 

Thank you so much for any information!!!!

We purchased air through Royal Caribbean's Air2Sea program.  We currently have unassigned seats and the only ones left are the ones where you have to purchase or wait to check in and they assign the seats for us.  I've been watching almost daily to see if any free seats open up as people upgrade or maybe for some reason, free seats open up.  After watching for about 4 months now, today, the seat prices went up by $50 per seat per category.  So, what was $95 per seat is now like $142 per seat.  Makes me wished I would have purchased earlier.  Anyway, I'm going to continue to watch.  Our flight is in mid-May.  I might just take a chance and have them assign my seat.  If I don't sit next to my husband, oh well.  I know I don't want to sit in a middle seat.  If I get assigned a middle seat at this point, I will upgrade then, if there is something available.  Just a chance I will have to take.  If anyone has any suggestions or thoughts, please let me know.  Thanks.

[FlyerTalker]

32 minutes ago, tj_shopper said:

I know I don't want to sit in a middle seat.  If I get assigned a middle seat at this point, I will upgrade then, if there is something available.  Just a chance I will have to take.  If anyone has any suggestions or thoughts, please let me know.  Thanks.

 

Stop hoping.

 

If you don't want to sit in a middle seat, buy one elsewhere.   Simple as that.

 

If you don't want to spend the money, be fully prepared to have the worst seat on the plane.

 

Not what you want to hear, but the facts.

[6rugrats]

9 hours ago, tj_shopper said:

  I know I don't want to sit in a middle seat.  Just a chance I will have to take.  If anyone has any suggestions or thoughts, please let me know.  Thanks.

You don't have to take this chance.  Buy another seat now.

[tj_shopper]

2 hours ago, 6rugrats said:

You don't have to take this chance.  Buy another seat now.

I probably will.  The prices for the seats have gone up.  What's the chance of it going back down?  Probably not lol.

[CruiserBruce]

33 minutes ago, tj_shopper said:

I probably will.  The prices for the seats have gone up.  What's the chance of it going back down?  Probably not lol.

Each flight on each day has its own sales trend, and that info is pretty secret. Nobody is going to be able to tell you what your chances are.

 

There is a common phrase here...do your research, find a price you can live with, buy, and DON'T LOOK BACK.

[FlyerTalker]

13 hours ago, tj_shopper said:

 I've been watching almost daily to see if any free seats open up as people upgrade or maybe for some reason, free seats open up.  After watching for about 4 months now, today, the seat prices went up by $50 per seat per category.  So, what was $95 per seat is now like $142 per seat.  Makes me wished I would have purchased earlier.  Anyway, I'm going to continue to watch. 

 

Four months you watched.  Did nothing.

 

Prices went up by almost 50%.  You are still watching.

 

Now, you want to hope that after the prices went up, you can now wait and have the price go down again?

 

Let's see....$95 was too much.  $142 is too much.  Just what is an acceptable price for you?  Or is your expectation that it will drop to zero?  What about when the price goes to $200?

 

39 minutes ago, tj_shopper said:

Probably not lol.

 

Time to get serious, not just think lol.  You need to decide what your acceptable prices are, and how you are going to deal with the situation if (as is all likely) the price does nothing but increase, or if the availability becomes nil.

 

This is reality.

[tj_shopper]

10 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

Each flight on each day has its own sales trend, and that info is pretty secret. Nobody is going to be able to tell you what your chances are.

 

There is a common phrase here...do your research, find a price you can live with, buy, and DON'T LOOK BACK.

Good advice.  I should have purchased awhile ago but thought I had plenty of time.  Didn't realize the price on the seats would go up.  Lesson learned.  Thanks.

[tj_shopper]

10 hours ago, FlyerTalker said:

 

Four months you watched.  Did nothing.

 

Prices went up by almost 50%.  You are still watching.

 

Now, you want to hope that after the prices went up, you can now wait and have the price go down again?

 

Let's see....$95 was too much.  $142 is too much.  Just what is an acceptable price for you?  Or is your expectation that it will drop to zero?  What about when the price goes to $200?

 

 

Time to get serious, not just think lol.  You need to decide what your acceptable prices are, and how you are going to deal with the situation if (as is all likely) the price does nothing but increase, or if the availability becomes nil.

 

This is reality.

We are a group of 32 people going on a cruise.  Everyone except 15 of us got seat assignments.  While watching daily for the last four months, I was able to get an additional 8 people free seat assignments as they freed up.  I don't know how those seats freed up but as I watched, I was able to put 8 additional people in  free seats.  I put the younger kids with less income in those free seats.  The 7 people (which includes my husband and me) still do not have seat assignments.

 

Guess what?  The seats today went back down.  I purchased them this morning.  I will need to let the other 5 people know that if they want to purchase or take their chances to do that today as the seat prices went back down.  I got lucky.  The price went up for one day/two days and back down today.

[mauimary]

After I finished booking International tickets for the end of May (Delta) I went back in to look at something on another device and that one way ticket was nearly $100 more!  This was 15 min later.  

[fbgd]

7 hours ago, mauimary said:

After I finished booking International tickets for the end of May (Delta) I went back in to look at something on another device and that one way ticket was nearly $100 more!  This was 15 min later.  

 

That's because you bought the last seats at that given fare price, thereby meaning the cheapest available fare was now a slightly more flexible, higher class ticket. Fare prices don't go up and down, the cheaper seats sell out.

 

Think of it like a hotel...you bought the last King Bed room available so now only more expensive Junior Suites are available. For someone just wanting a "hotel room" the price may appear to have increased but actually they're getting a slightly better room out of it. Same with plane tickets....that more expensive ticket may be more flexible with the ability to purchase nearer the time of travel etc. etc.

 

 

[mauimary]

2 hours ago, fbgd said:

 

That's because you bought the last seats at that given fare price, thereby meaning the cheapest available fare was now a slightly more flexible, higher class ticket. Fare prices don't go up and down, the cheaper seats sell out.

 

Think of it like a hotel...you bought the last King Bed room available so now only more expensive Junior Suites are available. For someone just wanting a "hotel room" the price may appear to have increased but actually they're getting a slightly better room out of it. Same with plane tickets....that more expensive ticket may be more flexible with the ability to purchase nearer the time of travel etc. etc.

 

 

That could be but we didn’t buy the cheapest tickets. The seats that were $100 more were right behind us and there are still quite a few seats left on that flight which is now a week later.  Sometimes we have found the more you play around with it the price increases.  There must be a way of recognizing a device!   These tickets were purchased 3.5 months out so for International travel that’s getting pretty close. 

[fbgd]

13 hours ago, mauimary said:

That could be but we didn’t buy the cheapest tickets. The seats that were $100 more were right behind us and there are still quite a few seats left on that flight which is now a week later.  Sometimes we have found the more you play around with it the price increases.  There must be a way of recognizing a device!   These tickets were purchased 3.5 months out so for International travel that’s getting pretty close. 

 

There are in some cases a dozen or so fare "buckets" on a given flight. You hoovered up the last in a fare bucket at a given price leaving only the next highest fare available, hence the higher price showing. The fact there were "seats left"(whatever that means, seatmaps are a poor indicator of how busy a flight is, and airlines will oversell flights too) doesn't mean anything.

 

Airlines don't raise prices when you're searching for flights, that would be illogical given that most people book based on price alone. What's likely happening is, depending upon how you do your search you may be closing out inventory in a given fare bucket temporarily, thereby leaving the next, higher price showing if you go back and search again. If those tickets aren't purchased then it can be released back into general inventory, and therefore the price appears to drop. Of course, someone else could have booked at the very same time you were searching. 

 

 

[Iamthesea]

On 1/30/2023 at 12:26 PM, chatdad said:

Some airlines (Delta for one) may offer 'buy ups' for the higher category seats so keep watching your booking.  

 

 

When we flew in July to London/Paris, my husband and I went with Delta Comfort+ because we were also paying for our two daughters flights and we were not going to treat them to a BC seat.  Yet, it didn't feel right to put them back in Economy while we were in BC.😁  So we all went Comfort+. In the past those were nice seats.  However, those once comfortable seats are no longer a comfort when flying overseas!  Leg room has been reduced, and the seats are harder.  We were miserable and vowed to only go Business when flying overseas next time. 

 

Well, that next time is coming up this May when we fly back to Europe.  We are not flying Business!!! 🙄   The prices were just too darn high...higher than our verandah cruise fare!  Instead, we decided to try out the Premium Economy seats with Delta.   While not a lay flat seat, we like the fact that they are like the old First Class seats...comfortable enough, and with a reasonable price tag (each about the same as the pp cost of our cruise.)

 

When checking on my flight a few weeks ago (Delta had changed our times) I noticed an offer to upgrade to Business Class for 115 miles, one way, pp.  I have always heard that if you can only afford to fly BC one-way, do so flying over and not on the return because you will be so tired after the trip, that you can sleep on any seat.  Not exactly true, but the upgrade offer was enticing.  The only problem was that while I have enough miles, my DH does not.  I also was not sure that I wanted to use up most of my miles that way.  

 

Fast forward to last week when I checked the booking again.  The  amount of miles to upgrade had gone down to 65,000.  I thought that a pretty good deal, plus DH would have enough miles.  I took a look at seat availability for BC and there were plenty. So I told DH about it, but we got busy and did not act.

 

After reading this forum a few minutes ago, I saw this thread, and the above quote.  Reminded me to take a look again and see if the offer was any lower.  Had the offer done down to 55,000 miles, one way, DH and I could both upgrade to Business Class and possibly have enough points to do so on the return!  (Of course, we cannot see if there is a return offer until after the first leg is over.)  I checked the booking and now the offer to upgrade to BC is up to 95,000 (or $945.00, one-way pp.)  Not doing that, but will check again in a week or so.  The same BC seat availability is still showing.  Obviously, there are others that feel the BC seat pricing is too high.

 

Question: If the amount of miles to upgrade go back down to 65,000, one-way, would that be a good use for our miles or would it be better to continue to save and use miles to pay for a full fare on a less expensive flight within the U.S.?

 

 

[fbgd]

1 hour ago, Iamthesea said:

 

The prices were just too darn high...higher than our verandah cruise fare! 

 

Easy problem to solve. Upgrade to an Owners Suite...

 

I don't think there is a correct direction in which to upgrade. I personally think if you can sleep onboard then do the business/first upgrade on the westbound since you'll be up and awake to experience the unpleasantness. I often find myself double thinking about paying for FC on overnight flights if business class also has lie flats, especially on my shorter US East Coast to London flights which is my most common route and where I'm asleep for all but about 30mins aloft.

 

As for the "good use of miles" that depends on the user and how much you earn. I know some people who prefer to redeem for shorthaul economy fares wherever, but on Delta those are largely pegged to revenue cost. I personally prefer to use my miles for "aspirational" flights, those where I might not pay $25,000-$30,000 for a cash ticket but would use a six digit amount of miles...

Edited February 15, 2023 by fbgd

[FlyerTalker]

Only you can determine whether the value received is a good "exchange rate" for your SkyMiles.  Note that DL is valuing those miles at about a penny apiece when compared to the cash price for the upgrade.

 

Personally, i would be dumping your SkyPesos are quickly as I could.  The head of SkyMiles has said that DL has no need to give passengers any kind of reasonable value for their miles - they have enough captive business.  So devaluation is the order of the day.  Why else would you find award tickets in business charging over 650,000 miles on DL.

 

https://viewfromthewing.com/head-of-delta-skymiles-explains-why-they-charge-so-much-more-for-awards-than-other-airlines/

 

Sorta like the dog on the porch....because he can.

 

 

[Iamthesea]

So I gather you think we should go for it and use the miles up?  This flight very well may be the last flight that we take overseas.  I hope not, but seems that the health of both DH and I has gone down a bit since soon before the Pandemic began.  It started with a serious car accident the January prior.  We just don't feel like traveling spring chickens anymore.  At just 65 & 70, we should be, and would like to be!!!  Luckily for us, we started traveling early and have seen so much all over the world in just 20 years.  If this isn't the last overseas flight, it will probably be the next to last.

 

5 hours ago, fbgd said:

 

Easy problem to solve. Upgrade to an Owners Suite...

 

I don't think there is a correct direction in which to upgrade. I personally think if you can sleep onboard then do the business/first upgrade on the westbound since you'll be up and awake to experience the unpleasantness. I often find myself double thinking about paying for FC on overnight flights if business class also has lie flats, especially on my shorter US East Coast to London flights which is my most common route and where I'm asleep for all but about 30mins aloft.

 

As for the "good use of miles" that depends on the user and how much you earn. I know some people who prefer to redeem for shorthaul economy fares wherever, but on Delta those are largely pegged to revenue cost. I personally prefer to use my miles for "aspirational" flights, those where I might not pay $25,000-$30,000 for a cash ticket but would use a six digit amount of miles...

 

Haha about the Owners Suite... I wish!!!

 

We do not have many miles in the bank because we used a lot a few years back.  And as I said above, we will probably not accumulate many more to do "aspirational" flights.

 

Thank you both!!!

 

[texasstar]

If you think it could be your last trip, go for it.

[Iamthesea]

Update:

 

Kicking myself!!! 

 

DH and I had agreed that upgrading to Business/Delta One for the trip over would be the best use of our miles because we will have a long day once we reached our destination of Amsterdam.  We are then taking the train from there to Germany for a couple of nights to visit friends. We will need some sleep beforehand.

 

So I have been watching to see if the number of miles to upgrade would go back down.   The amount was staying at 95,000 miles pp.   Checked again last night, and then this morning and the amount of miles to upgrade is now 175,000 for one-way pp.  I so wish I had just jumped on the offer when it was 65,000 pp. 😥

[6rugrats]

It could still go down.  Keep looking.

[Iamthesea]

I will, but I am afraid that every time I check, Delta is keeping tabs on my search. 

 

One other thing that I have been watching is the availability of those seats.  Still 19 seats available in Business/Delta One.  Been that way for a few weeks!  The Premium Economy seat availability has also not changed.  I believe that 7 are left, and there are only 21 seats to begin with.  We are currently in PE.   

 

Question:  What does it mean when seats have an X versus having a head figure (person) on the seat map? The entire rest of the airplane, including Comfort+ look like this. Or does it show this way to me because I cannot choose one of those seats already being in a higher category?

[CruiserBruce]

54 minutes ago, Iamthesea said:

I will, but I am afraid that every time I check, Delta is keeping tabs on my search. 

They aren't, but if you believe that, just clear your cookies.