Cant SDC because of 2 fare buckets on ticket?

So I have a flight to LGA today, that booked me on a strange routing, MSP-ORD-DTW-LGA. Was half the price of a direct ticket when i booked it. Called this morning to attempt to SDC to the direct MSP-LGA and was told something id never heard before: Because the legs were all in different fare buckets (H/L/L) if i want to SDC on this, i would need to pay the fare diff for the new ticket which is a $700 B fare....

Is this true? rather not have to spend 7 hours traveling just to get to NYC.....

Correct. SDC requires that you follow the routing rules of the ticket, and you have a broken fare, so you have to fly MSP-ORD. You can, however, try to SDC ORD-LGA instead of going via DTW, since that appears to be all on one fare component.

Like mtkeller says, it's not so much that the ticket has different fare buckets, it's that the ticket consists of a fare msp-ord combined end-on-end with at least one more fare ord-lga (could even be 3 fares, but not likely).

By the rules, you need to fly each fare by its rules, so you need to fly msp-ord. The rest of the itinerary you can probably alter.

You may be able to get a sympathetic agent at the airport to get you on a more direct itinerary.

+1

Ahhhh ok, thanks guys Never run into this before!

Yes, that is correct. You need to follow the routing rules of the fare(s) purchased. In your case, you bought a ticket from MSP-ORD and ORD-NYC (assuming the two L flights are under the same fare).

In general, phone agents are more strict with the rules of SDC. You may have some luck getting this accomplished in the SkyClub or at the ticket counter/gate. Also, try to do it online. I have had the kiosk/online offer me options the phone agents said were unavailable.

Land at ORD at 10:45 and theres a 11:15 direct to LGA....hope we land early and i can make that connection!

If your MSP-ORD flight is oversold, offer to volunteer and ask to be put on the MSP-LGA flight.

Check out this thread

My experience is you just have to press, you'll have better luck at the airport on the day of.

The ORD terminal is pretty tiny—even if you land a few minutes late you should be able to make that connection.

Also, ORD-LGA is pretty good for upgrades.

also note that there are distinct ORD-LGA fares for the shuttle flights and non-shuttle flights. your connecting L fare is *probably* one of the non-shuttle fares, which could make getting onto a shuttle flight problematic..

typical rule:

THE FARE COMPONENT MUST BE ON
ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING
DL FLIGHTS 1 THROUGH 1334
DL FLIGHTS 1400 THROUGH 5899
DL FLIGHTS 5970 THROUGH 6022
DL FLIGHTS 6026 THROUGH 9784
DL FLIGHTS 9791 THROUGH 9999.
NOTE - TEXT BELOW NOT VALIDATED FOR AUTOPRICING.
1. NO DELTA SHUTTLE.

(note that the ORD-LGA nonstops use flight numbers in the 5900-5969 range that's missing from the list of valid flights...)

the SDC rules in general allow connecting-to-nonstop changes, but this one may fail you -- do report back!

Experienced this for the first time today. SkyClub agent said "no go." First call to Medallion line was willing, but couldn't get availability on 2nd leg. Second call to Medallion line netted success and home 12 hours early!

I had this happen to me before, and the agent was unable to reissue the ticket. She had to send me to the manual reissue desk who was able to accomplish it. But in the time it took her to do it, I had taken a cab to the airport and was standing in line for the Sky Priority line.

I've successfully done this on a few of these "broken" fares recently with no problems.

The one time I had an issue I simply hung up and the second agent did it no questions asked.