TravelinWilly

Is that 1,000,000 per year? (I'm being rhetorical, you're not Michelle)

On the late July thread the figure was 400,000, again, without a time dimension.

Either way, I, too, am skeptical about the metrics here, and I echo your comment about IT at Delta.

I don't think this is a great move, but I'm willing to wait and see how this impacts us in reality (and yes, me personally).

Vuelos

Agreed on both parts. It's a screwed up and rushed implementation.

If they'd allowed you to change the routing or get a refund of lower miles, I'd have been fine. However, this seems like just throwing a policy together for the sake of "preventing all fraud".

This isn't going to stop what they were hoping to stop anyway, in the long run, the people who were doing it with mileage tickets will just say fine and book with CC's. That costs DL actual $$$... Doubt that the people in revenue management thought about that....

We all end up getting screwed in the end

Domestically, I could care less but internationally it looks like I'm going to begin to do what you've done Avid and start flying CO more. With their liberal change policies (and much better international award availability) it is beginning to make more and more sense.

Xeno

In response to the notion that one would falsify a 'dead great uncle' 8 times, what is one to do with true family emergencies? I had not used award tickets until this year when my father got critical. We buried him in June and I had to rework award tickets more than once due to the fluid situation mixed with trips to Cyprus, Sweden, Russia, and Oxford.

Now I am dealing with my mother who we were told to call in hospice then put on palliative care. I can't predict what will happen to her but managing her affairs from 1,000 miles means last-minute travel.

I continue to work hard and spend money for keeping DM with DL and expected that one benefit would relate to real life emergencies.

pbarnette

Agreed. I would be inclined to dismiss DL's complaints were it not for the fact that people seem to be admitting to doing exactly what DL says they are doing.

I think a good compromise would be to allow 'price' adjustments within the period, but not substantive changes or cancellations to the itinerary.

DL actually says they fly 5,771 daily flights, so quite a bit more than 4000, and it would mean slightly less than half the flights leave with an empty award seat. I would also suspect that the 1m number would include travel on partners, which would probably at least double the number of flights.

hazelrah

Ah, this is the crux of the matter. Delta treats low level awards as distressed inventory.

In my experience quite a few other FF offer far superior low-level award availability. This change just serves to highlight Delta policy, which DMs and PMS were just gaming. Hey not blaming them, I would have too if I were DM/PM.

fti

I am not Vuelos (obviously!) but I can see two things:

1) like he said upthread about people booking F awards on the same flights they are booked on in coach, knowing these F award passengers would be "no shows" then they receive UG's on these flights.

2) What one person does and I am sure others do as well (quoted from Michelle's thread):

baccarat0809

Michelle - I think you'll find that Delta created this by holding onto those low level inventories instead of releasing them a reasonable time out. It seems that on AA, UA/CO + US that elites CAN book LOW LEVEL awards. You don't seem to allow that unless the booking is done less than 72 hours out.

If you want to do this, then offer a REFUND when low level award travel opens up within 72 hours and a person had secured a seat with a high or mid level award. Either that or open up more low level award seats to your elites than you currently do. It's almost impossible to find an int'l low level award 60 days out.

We get that mother Delta was being taken advantage of, unfortunately because of your stubborness of releasing those low level seats you created the mess.

.

Vuelos

Though I will admit to being part of the problem. An example of how this will hurt my flexibility... last year at Christmas I decided I was going to stay on vacation an extra 3 days... when we'd arrived at the airport home for our connecting flight. Instead of boarding, I went to the Ticket Counter and they reissued the ticket for me for 3 days later. If I wanted to do that now, I'd be SOL and unable to do so.

DL is losing money in both cases (theoretically).

I'm not sure I like this whole agreeing with one another thing... it feels so weird

Vuelos

Yes, you do have the intention of using the ticket. Your situation, with documentation, should be an allowable exception.

That's a CUSTOMER FRIENDLY move... that would require someone / people understanding travel patterns of their best customers. good luck

fti

Seems to me you were very clear in your post:

Whether you actually did this or not is really irrelevant, though it can't seem clearer to me. Obviously many people did it unfortunately and screwed it up for the rest of us.

Then you request the waiver that they talked about. And how often does your wife have babies right around when you are supposed to travel? I would guess not more than about once a year at most.

rylan

It does sound like this change is specifically designed to prevent those with mid level tickets from taking advantage of a low bucket opening for the trip.
They already changed it so no-shows don't get their miles back... now they're basically ensuring that what little "low" availability there is never gets used.
The new "low" is mid.

bocastephen

This change is horrible! I can understand not refunding miles for tickets that no-show and then call up later to make a change, but to tell someone their ticket is locked in without changes/refunds 72hrs in advance is just ludicrous!!

This is almost as bad as US' former 'use it or lose it' rule for revenue tickets.

Just when it looked like DL was improving their product and program....now this.

Big and not well thought out at all!

andymo99

This sounds just awful. Too bad you didn't get out ahead of the news. How long are you going to let speculation run away before coming on here to clarify.

Whatever it is, seems like it is destined to be just an awful change.

mtkeller

Throw in being able to reprice (same routing or different routing, but keeping same travel date, origin, and destination), and I think that's a reasonable solution. It cuts down on abuse of people holding tickets they don't know if they're going to use but still allows the needed flexibility to get around the difficulty of using SkyMiles.

Vuelos

does that surprise you?