Can A Delta Companion Ticket Be Upgraded?

Is It Possible To Upgrade A Delta Companion Ticket?

When you have a Delta Airlines companion ticket, you may need to know if it’s possible to upgrade your companion or even your seat. However, most of the Delta companion tickets do not allow for an upgrade. However, there are a few circumstances where you may be allowed to upgrade a companion ticket. Continue to the next section to find out about upgrade restrictions and when upgrades can be made with a Delta companion pass.

What is a Delta Companion Ticket?

This means that for a mere fee and taxes that range between $75 for domestic flight segments within the US, you can take along a friend or family member as your companion. The regular ticket holder does not need to pay the actual fare in the case of traveling with a companion on this type of ticket.

There are a few different ways to earn a Delta companion certificate:

• Gaining Medallion elite status with enough MQMs or MQDs
• Having a qualifying Delta American Express credit card and meeting the minimum spending requirement to receive an annual companion certificate
• Typically, customers buy some of the higher-fare Delta products, like first class.

Companion tickets are usually limited to certain fare classes and these are usually higher fare restrictions than the economy. These restricted low fares cannot be upgraded in most of the circumstances.

Why Are Delta Companion Upgrades So Limited?

Delta companion fares can only be booked into specific deep discount economy fare buckets such as L, U, T, X, or V class. Any of these fare classes does not permit any upgrade to the ticket holder or related persons.

Specifically, the freedom of Delta’s discount fares cannot allow upgrades in return for offering low fares. Delta wants the customers to pay for first class in instances where they need a better experience, as opposed to promoting customers to book highly discounted economy tickets and then offer them the chance to upgrade those seats.

Upgrades impact Delta’s scarce number of first and business-class seats that can be sold at premium yields. That is why Delta does not allow upgrades from low-fare economy tickets, including companion passes tied to those fares.

Is It Possible That Delta Companion Tickets Can Be Upgraded?

In the Delta companion tickets, most of the tickets cannot be upgraded because of the fare class restrictions, but on some rare occasions, companion seats can be upgraded.

The few situations where you can upgrade a Delta companion ticket are:

Reserving to a Higher Booking Class That Permits Upgrade

If at the time of choosing the seats, you are booking your companion ticket into one of those main cabin economy fare classes that does allow an upgrade, such as Y or B class, then an upgrade should be possible.

However, if you have to book a companion into the same fare class as you, it will cost you a much higher fare. Sometimes, you will have to buy a refundable business class ticket just to be able to even be considered for those upgradeable economy tickets.

Companions on Award Tickets

When you use Miles to book an award ticket and then add your companion, some of the Delta agents will let you upgrade the companion for Miles if award seat upgrades are available. However, this is against policy and depends on the willingness and flexibility of the agent one is dealing with.

Rebooking after an irregular operation

If initially you are allowed only a specific fare that does not qualify for upgrades but Delta reissues your ticket due to an operational anomaly such as a flight cancellation, the ticket is reissued under a different fare bucket that qualifies for an upgrade. However, you’d have to get very lucky with the rare fare class that the rebooked ticket ends up in.

Upgrading to a better fare known as Same-Day Confirmed Upgrade

Delta Established, the Medallion elite members enjoy same-day confirmed upgrades in a specific year when the seats are available on the day of the journey. These special upgrades are separate entities from fare class restrictions. So if you have one to use, you can probably upgrade your companion to be a better one.

Cash Payments to Upgrade After the Plain Door Closes

There are very few cases in which gate agents are allowed to accept cash for upgrading passengers and this is mostly when the door of the airplane is closed and before it is ready to push back from the gate. If you try to explain that you want to pay for an unsold premium seat in cash at that point, often the agents will allow the upgrade.

How to Upgrade Delta Companion Tickets

To have the best chance at upgrading a companion ticket within the limited situations where it's permitted, follow these steps:

• It is desirable to book companion tickets in Y or B fare class
• Look for upgrades on more marginal routes or time slots to improve luck
• Politely inquire from gate agents whether cash payments can be made to upgrade after the main boarding has been done
• Utilize Medallion Same-Day Confirmed upgrades when qualified since these override fare rules
• The best thing to do would be to inform Delta in advance and request them to remark on the upgrade eligibility situation on the reservation. Having the information, one should set the right success expectations.

Although Delta companion certificates are very valuable, the value fares that come with them are very restricted and have extremely limited upgrade opportunities. Do not count on getting your preferred seats with these special fares and then hoping to be upgraded later on.

What about upgrades on other airline companion tickets?

Every airline has its policies on how to manage elite benefits and upgrades on a companion ticket or guest fare.

However, most have the same limitations as Delta for upgrades on their companion fares.

For instance, American Airlines only permits its AAdvantage award ticket companions to be upgraded under certain circumstances when there are empty seats. Companions on BOGO fares are allowed to be upgraded only if the traveler with the original ticket also opts for an upgrade.

Southwest and JetBlue don’t have first- or business-class seating as many other airlines do. Instead, they provide passengers with better options such as early boarding and extra legroom seats that a companion should be able to afford.

The few scenarios where upgrades might be effective reveal why it is crucial to check for the preferred seat location whenever using a companion certificate. This is often the case because expecting better conditions later means being let down, as most companion fares are created to be quite limited in their flexibility.

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