Varalith

Hi everyone, long time lurker with a few posts scattered here and there. I apologize if this has been posted already, but I was unable to find it anywhere.

I just booked an open-jaw BNA > DTW > AMS > CDG then PRG > AMS > DTW > BNA.

When selecting seats to buy into Economy Comfort, I found that if I selected EC seats on the first international leg, I could actually close out the payment prompt window and continue on with seat selection, eventually only paying for one international leg upgrade.

Obviously, if I tried to change EC seats on the first leg I would be prompted for payment, but it never tried to charge me to keep the seats I had, and even my itinerary on Delta's site showed proper seating.

I finally called Delta to verify that I wasn't missing something (because it's never spelled out that it's per leg so one could probably think that if they were purchasing both legs they just wound up with a cheaper overall price).

The rep let me know that those seat assignments obviously wouldn't be valid (which was fine because I want those seats and expected to pay for them) and that I merely needed to swap EC seats, pay the fees, then log back in and pick the seats I wanted again.

He DID say that when he pulled up my PNR it was showing those earlier seat assignments, so who knows what would have happened at the airport.

I just thought I would make everyone aware. I'm sure people that have flown EC have ran into this already, but I know there are still people that are looking at booking into this in the future and might benefit from the explanation of what's actually going on.

I feel like the website should catch this and force you to pay for all legs you selected EC on at the end of the seat selection, but that's probably too much to ask considering everything else the site should be able to do but can't (I'm looking at you award ticket change).

mendel k

Happened to me also when I changed my ticket cuz a cheaper fare became available in the 24 hour window. The rep just refunded me the difference in fare instead of reissuing me a whole new one ticket. Somehow, the ec purchase was also refunded. When I asked to pay for it, he said there was no place for him to enter the price, so he just kept me in my original ec seat for free . If I try to change the seat at delta.com now, though, it says cost $60

Varalith

Mendel,

If that's the case, then according to what I had been told, you should probably pay the fee if the EC fee was refunded to you (which is what I'm understanding you to be saying).

At this point you have an EC seat that isn't valid since you have no record of paying fees now (again, according to what I've been told).

mendel k

When I spoke with the agent I told him I wanted to pay and was willing to pay, and had payed when I first booked the ticket. He said that since he changed the ticket to give me the reduced fare, it kept me in my ec seat but refunded me my money and he said there was no way he could charge me for it. I called gm line this morning and asked if I could swap seats to another seat in ec and they did without charging me. (I called because when I wanted to switch seats online it wanted to charge me. I have no problem paying for ec, its just that when a cs rep knowingly gives me the seat without charging me, then why should i pay? Im not cheating the system! I told him to charge me, he said he couldn't, and that's that!) I called back and they said I should've been charged, but since the agent said shed change my seat and didn't mention charging me for it, it was fine

Varalith

Well that's awesome, glad everything worked out for you.

I probably should have left mine alone, but considering how likely it was that I'd get to the airport and have no reserved EC seats I felt like it was better to just suck it up and pay the fees even if it was showing me properly reserved.

KP2006

Considering how they handle the EC for a DM/PM with additional people on the reservation, I would just leave it alone.