What the heck am I talking about, you ask?  Delta has been pretty good to me on upgrades as both a Silver, and now Gold Medallion.  Usually, I fly Delta for work, and almost always on a K fare, with a few Y fares here and there.  With Delta, fare paid can trump status.  In other words, if you’re a Silver Medallion on a Y fare you will get upgraded before a Gold Medallion on a T fare.  I guess I get what they’re trying to do, reward those who pay the most, but it can seem a little convoluted compared to the way other airlines do it.  In any event, I think Delta’s system is why I’ve had such good luck with Medallion upgrades.  Even as a Silver Medallion, I cleared 67 percent of the time in 2010.  I think that’s pretty snazzy.  The last time I cleared to First Class when flying Delta on a personal trip was 2008.  🙂  You get the drift……  fare matters at Delta.

On to the story.  I was actually curious to see if Gold Medallion might make just enough of a difference when traveling on a T fare.  Today I’m flying BWI-ATL-RDU (yeah, I know…it’s the segments).  I haven’t cleared on either segment, and last time I looked, I was number 13 of 29 for 6 available First Class seats at the gate.  Yeah, that won’t be happening today.  For my return on Sunday, I’m one level up from T….traveling on a U fare.  Both segments cleared at the window.  I wasn’t surprised that I cleared on a 757 at 8:30am Sunday morning, but I was a little surprised that my MD80 connection cleared on Sunday afternoon.  Oh well, no complaints.

Up until yesterday, there were a handful of empty seats in First on each flight.  In fact, coach on my 757 from BWI this morning was all but empty.  That is, until the snow storm canceled hundreds of flights out of the DC area on Wednesday and Thursday.  My flight this morning was packed to the gills, and so is my connection.  I might’ve had a shot of clearing at the gate on either flight, but not now.

Well, I just felt like sharing.  My grand experiment is giving me a 50 percent success rate at upgrading on a cheap fare with Delta.  I guess that’s not so bad.