Is Delta Sky Comfort Plus Worth The Price?
My family and I recently flew to Austin, Texas to visit some inlaws. As I was booking my the flights, my wife was poking around on her iPad and instructed me to pay for the Delta Comfort Plus upgrade. For $19.50 a person, we would get the following amenities:
- Premium Snacks
- Dedicated overhead storage for carry-on luggage
- Premium Entertainment
- Free Drinks
On the surface the upgrade sounded as if it may be worth the cost. I paid the extra $58.50 each way ($117 total) for the upgrade. But when the day arrived for us to fly to Austin, would I find that the upgrade was worth the money?
Premium Snacks
The standard snacks available for free was a small bag of pretzels. With Delta Comfort Plus we were able to pick from a basket that contained things like bananas, Belvita Breakfast Biscuits, cookies, and other name brand snacks.
Verdict: The snacks were better, but certainly nothing to get excited about.
Dedicated Carry-on Luggage Storage
I placed our carry-on pieces into the storage above our seats, but it certainly wasn’t dedicated just for the use of people who paid extra.
Verdict: There was no value here, as there was no dedicated space.
Free Drinks:
When the beverage cart came around, my wife ordered a coffee with Bailey’s. It was complementary as per our upgrade, but that was the opportunity she had to get a beverage.
Verdict: Maybe if we would have asked the airline attendant for more it would have been provided, but we were expecting to have more opportunities to take advantage of this perk.
Premium Entertainment
To access the entertainment system on the airplane, I had to connect my own device to the wifi, install the ap, and then I could stream from a list of movies and shows. Most were free to everyone, however there were some shows that were listed as free to Delta Comfort Plus customers. All I had to do was enter my name and my seat number. Unfortunately, when I followed the directions, it said it was unable to verify my identification. No premium entertainment for me. Although it would have only cost $1 to watch the show I had selected.
Verdict : The cost to view a show was a whole $1. But I couldn’t even save that dollar because the system couldn’t figure out who I was.
Final Verdict
In exchange for the $57 we paid for three tickets upgraded to Delta Comfort Plus we received a Banana, some breakfast biscuits, and a shot of Bailey’s Irish Cream.
Delta’s Comfort Plus is a complete ripoff.
Have you purchased an airline upgrade only to be disappointed? Have you ever upgraded to Delta’s Comfort Plus? What was your experience?
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Brought to you courtesy of Brock
Brock is a software engineer by day and personal finance blogger at night. He is a fitness junkie and enjoys grilling and smoking meat. Married with two children, Brock strives to improve his skills as a husband and father, and is always on the lookout to stretch his family’s budget as far as he can.
Ha! I was expecting a totally different conclusion. Something like:
1. The snacks were caviar and pastries
2. The storage let you forego checking your bags which saved at least an hour
3. You pounded 5 drinks each with a price per drink of $5
4. The movies were hotel-priced at $20 each
Good to know it’s not worth the $.
I did buy early-access seating (or whatever they call it) on Southwest recently for $25 each way for two people. The first time it was most certainly worth it as I got stuck in security and made it on the flight with 3 minutes to spare. I would have had a middle seat on a 4-hour flight if my daughter hadn’t gotten on early (she had TSA pre-check and cruised through the line) and saved us seats.
Glad to hear you made your flight! I like to surprise people with my conclusions sometimes….glad you enjoyed the article!
I definitely think you are right, especially if you are willing to do a little planning ahead.
* In flight snacks – the items you mentioned are easily available at the grocery store, including pre-packaged items like vegetables. Have to worry about things like dip, etc., since it might not make it through TSA. (liquid restrictions)
* Drinks on board are tough. There really is no way to have a drink on board aside from getting it through the airline, unless you buy the little airline bottles ahead of time. I think these actually would pass the TSA restrictions. I don’t know how much these cost, though.
* Entertainment – like you said, there is a lot of free content. Enough to likely get through a flight.
The thing that I find to be out of whack in pricing is WiFi. I believe it is $16 or $18 for a 24 hour pass on Delta. Add in that it is not very secure, and you are limited from things like streaming video, and it is a pretty bad deal. I did one time stream audio to listen to the UM-MSU game on a return flight… Have to have your priorities!!!
I agree overall, to me, it is not worth it. I am guessing some people might find the extra leg space they offer with this seat to truly be the most important perk, and I think that is how it started. You didn’t mention that aspect – did the extra legroom make a difference or was it worth it to you?
I can go without wifi on an airplane…….the hum of the airplane makes me soooo sleepy anyway.