Upgrade! Flying First Class

For years I was a mocker… who would fork over the ridiculous amount of money they require to have a little more hip room and a warm towel or two?  I was under the mistaken impression that everyone who was in First Class had paid to be there.

Then it all changed for me.   I had been constantly pestered with advertising and pre-approved offers for the Gold Delta Skymiles card.  They finally made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, including medallion-qualifying miles.

I had no idea what the “medallion-qualifying” meant, but it sounded good.  I realized that when I logged into my skymiles account it had me as “Sliver Medallion.”  I thought that was cool, but it didn’t really hit home until I booked the flights for our Southern Caribbean cruise ($74 SLC to Puerto Rico after I used my voucher).  Two days before I left, I checked in on my Delta iPhone app and it told me I had been upgraded to First Class for 2 of the 3 legs of my trip!

Since then I’ve been on two more Delta trips where I’ve been upgraded for at least half of the flights.  Now I have something else to look forward to when I approach the gate besides praying for “the bump.”

I now have a much better idea of why people rave about flying First Class.  Those extra inches of hiproom have compounding effect when it comes to comfort, and what could possibly make your flight better than a friendly flight attendant offering Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups?

I’m actually nearing Gold Status now which will make it that much more likely that I get upgraded to partake in these perks.  If you look at this screenshot of my status, I need about 11,600 miles to get there.  I’ll get about 7,000 if I follow through with plans to take my wife to Hawaii for our 10th anniversary, and I’m going to try to make up the rest by calling to see if I can upgrade my Gold Delta Skymiles card to a Platinum, for which they’ll possibly give me 15,000 miles of which 5,000 are medallion-qualifying.

You might be closer to medallion qualifying status than you think… and if you are close, obtaining enough qualifying miles to reach that level may be as simple as partaking in one of the credit card offers they’ve been targeting you with.