Hawkeyefan

Our family has a RT domestic itinerary coming up in Economy.
Since I booked the trip, we are thinking of changing the back end of our trip, and coming back home a day later. Appears if I do a change on our current res, we'll owe the $150 + fare difference, which right now is appreciable. Fine so be it.

What about these options instead:
1) Walk away from the return leg on Delta and book a one way for the next day, same city pairs, on a different airline? Nice deals out there right now for the one way, from $40 pp and up (bags of course).

2) Walk away from the Delta return leg, and book a one way with Delta for the next day, same city pairs. Looks like that is running $90 pp which would be way under the change fee + fare difference.

Am I running any risk here of repercussions? I would think Option #1 would be no issue at all, what about option #2? Thx!

Widgets

If you do #2, you can cover your ... by calling Delta and asking to cancel your return itin.

Hawkeyefan

Would assume you do this after flying the OB leg?

nichojo

Either way is fine. If you want to be extra careful leave your SM number off of the backup itinerary until after you cancel your return.

nichojo

Yes. You cannot cancel half a ticket.

kitkat77

Yes. Doing it before flying the outbound will result in a reprice of the whole ticket and charging you the change fee.

If you do so after flying the outbound, if there is anything left (fare leftover - change fee) they may even give you the credit as a voucher to use later.

I don't have any experience where fare leftover - change fee - negative result, though...

Mr. Tickets

Doesn't make any difference. Delta can still track by name (and birth date).
I know, I have run into it personally.

flyerCO

If you wait till after flying OB, and there's same fare class availability you should be able to change for just the change fee provided other conditions of fare are met.

jdrtravel

Another option is to call in and explain to the agent that its currently cheaper for you to buy a separate return ticket than to pay the change fee and ask if they might be willing to waive the change fee.

Hawkeyefan

One thing I did not mention at first and I should have. 3 of us are on revenue tickets but one is an award ticket. How would this work with award ticket, I assume if we just walk away from the return leg of the award ticket, we simply forfeit the miles for the remainder of the trip, correct? If we cancel that ticket after the OB leg, would we get any miles back? I am assuming no.

exwannabe

The award ticket might have a better chance of getting residue credit as the one way in miles is likely only half the RT (while on revenue tickets, the OW could price much more than half the RT).

Of course you would then still have to pay a redeposit fee on those miles (unless you are DL PM).

PS. The point about a negative value means nothing assuming you cancel after the outbound is flown. In theory, DL claims the rights to charge a pax in such a case. But this is never ever going to happen unless somebody has found a way to run a true scam on DL. They can not simply ding a CC for the negative value left.

Hawkeyefan

Interesting. So if our family member flies the OB leg of a domestic award ticket, then cancels the return, 1/2 of the RT miles would be returned, with the $150 fee? Want to be sure I am seeing that right.

jdrtravel

No, not unless you called and asked for an exception to this rule: Miles cannot be redeposited/reissued within 72 hours of outbound flight departure. Prior to 72 hours they can be redeposited or the ticket changed with a $150 fee.

exwannabe

Is this really true? I thought DL's annoying vague 72 hour rule did not apply to cancelling/changing a return after the outbound was flown.

GagaPilot

Years ago I had a circumstance come up with school registration that required me to fly my return 2 days later than planned. Called DL and they were no help. It was considerably cheaper to just not show for the originally scheduled return flight and I booked a one way for the 2 days later. Never experienced any repercussions.