carolina13

I am attempting to book a one-way flight on Vietnam Airways from Tokyo-Haneda to Hanoi using SkyMiles. Online it shows availability for 22,500 miles. When I click to purchase on the last page of the checkout, I have been receiving an error. I have attempted to call Delta, but the agents have not been able to assist me. I have also checked on the Air France site and that site also shows reward availability on the flight I want. Any tips? A specific number I can call for better assistance? Things to tell the agent to help them along? I've read in various places online that there is a trick to booking VA awards and many agents don't know them.

flyerCO

One VA is Virgin Australia, Vietnam Airlines is VN. Don't know of many tricks when it comes to VN unlike VA.

Second, when it comes to VN they're systems and other Skyteam don't always keep each other up to date. It may seem like there's inventory but when it hits the VN system, the VN says there's none. It could also be that VN isn't wanting to release the seat as a standalone flight and is holding out for it to be part of a larger/longer reservation.

Sadly there's not much that can be done with VN airlines to get award seats if the system won't book it.

FirstInFlight

What did the Delta phone agent tell you? Sometimes the international desk is better equipped but Delta ought to be able to at least identify the issue.

In my experience I have always booked directly with VN without problems. The VN website is different but it has always ultimatwly worked out for me. But I haven't book an award ticket with them so can't help you there.

RealHJ

Most VN flights you can see and book directly on dullta.com. If it doesn't show, it's likely N/A (but double check on airfrance.us). Some VN destinations DL doesn't search properly on its site so you'll need to call to book.

cooljoe613

im having the same issue

i actually had delta manually issue the ticket and VN is saying they see the flights on the e ticket however i dont have a reservation on the flight.

one segment is air France and that shows fine on airfrance.com along with the Vn flight

delta is saying they can only refund the miles and tax they cant get a seat on VN

SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG

delta.com was not showing any availability however today 3 seats are showing.

any help would be appreciated

RealHJ

Call and ask for Global Ticketing Support. Insist that they conference in VN reservations and have VN res. explain to DL GTS what the problem is exactly. Sounds like its ticketed fine, but a PNR (actual reservation) was never created by DL with VN. I had the same problem on a UA ticket for CA flights; UA could never fix it and the only recourse was refund/cancel, after CA outright canceled the partial (incomplete) PNR after UA inaction for several months. Hopefully here you get some more cooperation from DL than I got from UA in a similar situation. Easiest will be likely to create and ticket a brand new reservation here (suggest that to DL GTS), as the existing one is too badly messed up to salvage.

bison1847

Hi I just had a similar problem, I can see 3 Z/J tickets on KLM/AF for the CDG-HAN VN flight on Dec 23 but when I call DL they are unable to see it. Does VN release less seats to Delta? I asked the DL skymiles lady to try to the GTS folks but then after 5 mins she came back and sorry no availability. Any other tips on how to bring this forward? Is there another way to see the real availability on VN? What fare class does DL Book to for business on VN?

Thanks in advance for any help on this.

RealHJ

O and X are the fare classes, same as for practically all other SkyTeam airlines.

It used to be a very long and convoluted process (even longer than long-sell, which required some actual e-mails or calls between DL and VN and took a few weeks to confirm) to book VN award flights on DL earlier -- even when it was clearly available as per airfrance.us. But, it hasn't been so for quite a while and it should be all bookable now in real time via the normal channels.

That being said, some ~6 months ago (give or take a few) I noticed a major reduction in availability, on delta.com, of VN's HAN-CDG, SGN-CDG and vv flights. Used to be widely available pretty much every day, but then all of a sudden it practically went away with very limited, if any, availability.

It may be DL blocking these VN flights. I hope not (to the best of my knowledge, there are no confirmed reports of DL blocking awards, other than during KE and a few other airline blackout dates, which are at least published)...but if you see it available on AF and DL won't let you book it, it may be DL blocking (if so, that's a relatively new and further major devaluation of the SlyMiles program). Via long-sell DL could still likely get it, but agents either are not allowed to do it, or have had that functionality entirely taken away from them now.

itsaboutthejourney

no, see REALHJ's advice above. It's exactly what it's suggest too. Delta has people who know how to book VN tickets, but you sometimes have to push to get them on the phone.

FlyerBeek

I'm also curious if there are any confirmed firsthand reports of DL blocking/blackouts of certain VN award availability?

I'm currently looking at a VN HAN-ICN segement over the holidays that clearly has O inventory. The flight doesn't show up on DL.com and I spoke with a very proactive and helpful DL agent yesterday. She first tried to long-sell the segment (no success) and then researched it further. After putting me on hold for a while and speaking to several supervisors, she came back and read some policy they found that stated something close to the effect that "VN segments that come back unconfirmed are blocked."

The DL webpage that discusses award blackout dates makes absolutely no mention of VN (only KE, CI, and CZ blackouts are listed).

-FlyerBeek

flyerCO

It's not DL that is blocking the reservation, it's VN. Airlines don't always give all their award seats to partners. Thus if it's coming back unconfirmed it means that VN, not DL is refusing to accept the reservation.

FlyerBeek

Oddly, AF and other sources show the award inventory as available (similar to an earlier post in this thread). In my experience, AF doesn't typically show phantom VN availability. Does VN discriminate award inventory amongst partners?

-FlyerBeek

flyerCO

Yes most airlines discriminate. However just because inventory shows doesn't mean an airline has to confirm a reservation issued by another airline. They can choose to refuse to allow it to be reserved. Also there's nothing to say that the phantom VN inventory isn't phantom, but just a matter of VN inventory not updating in other airlines systems.

There could also be legal restrictions that prevent VN from offering a certain combination of flights. Thus while there's inventory, if they're not allowed to sell a set of flights between two countries the VN system would block it.

RealHJ

Very unlikely so. This is a bunch of nonsense that lazy and ignorant airline res tell pax, and I guess some people are gullible enough to believe it.

Sometimes it may be true, but it very, very rarely (if ever) is.

For example, during DL's blackout dates for KE flights, KE still makes the flights available - you can see that as you can book it on FlyingBlue, for example, and DL agents can still get the flights (availability is there) and put together the PNR anually, it's just blocked at ticketing. That is, blocked by DL.

For VN, DL has been clearly blocking A350 flights. VN, same as other SkyTeam airlines, makes the same flights available to all SkyTeam airlines. DL is just blocking some of that inventory, esp. a lot (most, if not all) of the A350 flights to EU.

VN, nor most other airlines, are not differentiating what they release to other alliance airlines. It's the other airlines who are blocking the alliance flights availability to their customers.

RealHJ

No. VN doesn't do so (it likely doesn't even have the technical capability to do so; most airlines don't). Neither do the vast majority of other airlines. DL is simply blocking it.