p0rkbelly

Chalk this up to a lesson learned....and being half asleep.

I'm a recent PM, so some of this is new to me...

Anyway, I decided I want to come back from a Vegas trip this week (JFK-LAS) trip a day early. A week ago I was already given a comp upgrade to Business Class for my flight tomorrow. Great!

So I woke this morning and was going to pay a change fee and come back earlier, the ticket difference was miniscule and the change fee was less than a hotel room for another night.

Well...

1) I lost my Business Class Upgrade. Hopefully, I can get this back at the gate as there are 5 slots left, and I suspect my old seat is still available. This was a surprise to me, didn't think my return flight would affect my departing flight. Now I know.

2) There were two flights I wanted, the Wednesday afternoon was ~$400+ ticket price difference. The later one was maybe $30. So I paid the change fee and the +$30 to move from my Thursday flight to the Wednesday early evening flight to get home early.

....BUT, turns out, I looked at the dates wrong and was half asleep. I was already coming home a day early! I just didn't realize I booked an extra night at the hotel. And my originally booked flight, was the prime flight I wanted to be on that cost $400 more.

So I call back Delta and asked if they can revert the change I just did, as I wanted my original seat and flight back -- that I just read the dates wrong.

Of course, they couldn't do that, but, I did get them to waive the change fee for switching again.

Long Story, Short:

$550ish to lose business class upgrade and keep my same seat and flight on the way home. Yikes.


Not a proud moment for me. The Silver Lining is that I now probably have a higher Fare Class which could help on upgrade priority if going against another PM?

jimrpa

24 hour guarantee?

jdrtravel

I think OP did get 24 hour guarantee in that they waived the change fee. The 24 hour risk free cancellation does not give you any right to go re-book a fare at an old price, you always have to pay the currently published price.

OP in terms of loosing the upgrade, this should not have happened. The agent should have been able to leave your outbound flight untouched and just change the return. It sounds like they cancelled and rebooked your whole flight. This is where you might have luck getting a supervisor to reinstate your upgrade.

flyerCO

p0rkbelly

Thanks.

I did the original cancellation/reschedule online -- I guess I should have called from the start. (Or you know, not be stupid and do it at all...).

5 Business class Seats are still available (and maybe my original, because I don't think they upgraded someone else in the 10 minutes it took me to re-book...) so I feel pretty good about getting it back.

Zeeb

If it makes you feel any better, unless you were routing via LAX or SFO you lost a domestic first upgrade, not business class upgrade. Still something to lament, but nowhere near the service difference.

danielonn

I think your only hope OP and I know this may not be what you want to hear is hope that your current flight gets cancelled or they change the schedule or a weather delay etc to get back on the earlier flight.

Another option is to show up at the airport on the day you wish to travel home.

Also it may not hurt to call up Delta.Com support and tell them your story. I had an issue with a ticket and they transferred me to the Delta Ticketing Queue Department who fixed it. What happened is I signed up my Father for a Credit Card(Delta) and was supposed to get the $100 rebate at the time of booking and there was a glitch. Now mind you it took more than 24 hours to resolve this and the Delta Supervisor gave $100 and graciously waived the change fee and booked us on the flights for the same cost.

Perhaps if your really nice and say that you made a mistake however you wish to go on the earlier flight in Business Class/Domestic First perhaps the web department can work with a supervisor(the SLC ones are helpful) to see if they would waive the change fee. Remind them that you are not cancelling but are changing the date giving them ample time to sell the seat.

You could say you have an important obligation and that you were half asleep when you booked the wrong date( I know an excuse but we all have those days).

In the future OP you may want to check the itinerary before you hit"Change" or at least print it out if there is a mistake and call right away to Delta and explain your mistake. Also you may want to make bookings when you are alert.

I know exactly how the OP feels as I have made bookings in the middle of the night and made a mistake but thanks to the 24 hour policy I read over the itinerary in the morning and got it straightened out without a glitch and the fare even went down by $100 so got it rebooked in Economy Comfort back in the heyday as opposed to taking the $100 and the agent was a gem .

Hope it gets resolved to your satisfaction and please let us know the results.

danielonn

OP please call the Web Desk Pronto 1888-750-3284 and explain your mistake and let us know how it goes. Remember it never hurts to try. If you don't get an answer the first time then you can hangup and call again. Reach out to @Delta Assist on Twitter, Email Delta on Facebook Private Messanger, ask for a senior supervisor, contact SkyMiles or the Elite Desk. I am sure there will be a soul out there who will help you.

In fact this is why I book my ticket online as the Web Desk can help me with support. During the 2 hour long hold times earlier this summer I called the Web Desk and within 10 minutes I got a nice rep from the US SLC call center who helped me to fix our schedule change. I have used them to help me with seat selections etc. They are the best resource available.

jdrtravel

Got it--yes, I think this is where you lost your seats. As I mentioned before, when calling in, an agent can leave part of a itinerary in tact and just change the other part. If it were within 24 hours, they should be willing to waive the change fee, even though you are not technically cancelling but instead changing the reservation.

danielonn

Yes well stated!!!!! When you change your return portion the outbound portion should stay as you select to only change the return portion. I have had to do the online flight change before and I'm given the option of which flight do I want to chage?

I then choose the radio button to the second itinerary and then its the same process as if you are booking the ticket for the first time. I select the Time, Delta Comfort Plus and choose my seats. If there are any fees it will ask for my Credit Card info but if not you select" Change". Then you will see a confirmation page and it will ask you to confirm the changes again. And then you will print out your itinerary. At this point call Delta to see if they have reticketed the reservation reflecting the change.

What happens when you make a change they have to manually reticket the reservation if it does not do it automatically or else your second segment can be cancelled. Perhaps the OP selected the wrong date and saw the same flight for the next day. That has happened to me(:.

As for the upgrade that should not have effected the outbound. If I had seen that my upgrade for the return segment did not take effect within 10 minutes I would have called Delta.com Web Support to manually enter in the upgrade information again and put it forward to the Ticketing Queue/Reticketing Department to reticket it.

The fare basis may have changed depending on the availability . Is the OP sure that the new flight meets the upgrade rules? Perhaps the OP saw the award seats but it was taken out of inventory in the time the OP tried to upgrade hence someone else booking got it before the OP did. The OP states that there were seats available did the OP see the fare code like YUP(Upgrade from Coach)?

I think there was a misunderstanding. I hope this helps.