Travel plan idea blog

Question / rant about Delta Airlines ticketing and frequent flyer miles

Hey all,

I was interning in Bombay until I came down with pneumonia...to make a long story short I had to cancel my and my mother's plane tickets with Delta.

We managed to get ourselves on a flight on the 19th...however I would really prefer to fly earlier and so does my mom.

We asked the local Delta office if we could be put onto a flight next week..wed, thurs, or even friday. However they told us the flights were "full" and that we would be put on the waitlists. We've called every day to see if we've been moved on but no luck.

I just recently checked Delta online however, and there are plenty of business class seats available- from what I understand the problem is that we currently have Coach "m class" tickets, which we used our miles to upgrade to business class...but since there are no coach seats available on the earlier flights, they can't put us on those flights.

This makes no sense to me..as customers we are willing to pay a change fee, and we are not bumping anyone off of their seats- simply taking an empty business class seat where we wouldve sat any way.

Does anyone have experience with Delta and their ticketing services? Is there some way to get around this- maybe by cancelling our tickets and getting credit, then buying new one way flights? Is there a better number than just the general world-wide number to call?

I realize there may be no other way, I'm just feeling pretty frustrated right now. Was wondering if anyone has experience with Delta or could explain why they have such annoying ticketing rules.

Thanks

Answer:

The issue with mileage upgrades is that they are based off a coach class fare, then ticket into business class after. In order to change a flight in which you are redeeming a reward upgrade, you first need to have availability in the coach fare class you originally purchased, M in this case, and availability in the business class upgrade bucket.

If there are no upgrade seats available in business class, there is no way to do a mileage upgrade into the cabin, even if seats are still available for sale.

Delta will argue that you have only purchased a coach class fare, and as such can only rebook you into coach on another flight. From there, you may start the upgrade process (or waitlist) again, but you cannot make a parallel move in flights without starting essentially from scratch. The good news is that you are due back any mileage or fees you paid to secure the upgrade in the first place, minus a redeposit fee in some cases. However, if you are already paying a change fee on your ticket, I would refuse to pay any further mileage redeposit fees, and they will likely comply.

FYI, Delta is dropping its nonstops from the US to BOM as of October 21. They'll keep the one-stop via AMS that is a legacy of Northwest, though.

Posted by James Trotta at July 14, 2009 8:14 PM