Originally Posted by
floridaCFII
The business seats got snagged by coach pax who were upgraded because of the oversell (probably elite customers, full fare, etc). The cleared list you were seeing didn't show as a standby list, because those were revenue pax without a seat (shows up as HK on travelnet and they have basically #1 priority for seats).
Your plan to get business works well if coach has no-shows and isn't actually oversold... otherwise you'll get left behind.
I guess that's the case, then, huh.
I was reading some posts on flyertalk and that seems to be the general consensus as well.
That clears up my confusion and makes perfect sense. I honestly thought Delta would leave coach pax before upgrading them on an int'l flight. Especially since those seats go for $7000, I thought an airline would keep those seats as sacred.