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Delta Gave Away my Seat after a Cancellation

Delta Gave Away my Seat after a Cancellation

Old Jul 17, 2017, 1:10 pm
  #1  
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Unhappy Delta Gave Away my Seat after a Cancellation

As a silver medallion member and frequent Delta traveler, I understand delays and cancellations. Friday I was delayed 3 hours (mechanical and then weather) and the flight was eventually cancelled. I was re-booked on a flight the next day and received a boarding pass and CONFIRMED seat in first class ( original seat was comfort +). I was denied boarding and watched as the gate agent put several stand-bys on the flight. He was extremely rude and insisted I was not on the flight and refused to look at my boarding pass. I went to the PSA desk and was put on stand-by for the next flight. I'm extrememly disappointed and feel like the gate agent behavior was unacceptable. I didn't yell or curse or cause any sort of disruption, yet he threatened to call security on my when I started to cry. I've reached out to Delta and they offered 10,000 miles or a $250 voucher......I don't really want either and I feel like that measly amount is a slap in the face for how I was treated. If this is how they treat loyalty members, what's the point?
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 1:25 pm
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Last edited by woodford02A; Jul 17, 2017 at 2:42 pm
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 1:27 pm
  #3  
 
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Originally Posted by woodford02A
Sounds like in-voluntary denied boarding, no? Maybe some other FTs can chime in?
Not if they let standbys on. IDB only applies when the flight is oversold.

Does sound like a pretty bad customer service failure, though.
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 1:31 pm
  #4  
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First of all, sorry for your bad travel days and welcome to Flyertalk.

What do you mean you were refused boarding? Did you scan your boarding pass and an error came up?

It sounds like maybe something got messed up with your ticket at some point, and the gate agent should have been more helpful than they were (regardless of your elite status) in trying to fix it.

Did you check your reservation on the Delta app at any point in this process? That might have given a hint as to whether something had changed. I am wondering if perhaps seats had opened up on an earlier flight and you were rebooked on an earlier flight than the one you tried to board without being told as such, and then when you didn't show up for that earlier flight it cancelled your reservation. Or there was just some more garden-variety IT screw up.

In the future in a situation like this, the best approach would probably be to call Delta immediately, to hopefully get the issue sorted out before boarding finishes (and to ideally make the call out of earshot / vision of the unhelpful gate agent so as not to annoy them further). Though once boarding has started the gate agent has control of the flight and there may not be much others can do.

I know it doesn't help remove the frustrating experience you had, but $250 is a decent offer for this kind of situation. (And for what it's worth I would definitely argue for choosing $250 over the 10,000 miles.)
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 1:35 pm
  #5  
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I had the boarding pass through my app. I went to board and was told to step to the side to talk to another agent because there was an issue. While I waited for the agent, he was handing out boarding passes. Apparently, the e-ticket didn't attach to the record ID correctly. This was a glitch in the reservation system. That's why the gate agent didn't see it. That said, he didn't need to be rude and should have offered to help correct the problem. That didn't happen. When I called Delta it was over an hour wait so I went to the closest desk to talk to a person.
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 1:39 pm
  #6  
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Originally Posted by jordyn
Not if they let standbys on. IDB only applies when the flight is oversold.

Does sound like a pretty bad customer service failure, though.
Thanks. Yes, it was definitely bad customer service.
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 1:41 pm
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Originally Posted by bgriff

I know it doesn't help remove the frustrating experience you had, but $250 is a decent offer for this kind of situation. (And for what it's worth I would definitely argue for choosing $250 over the 10,000 miles.)
I disagree about the compensation being enough. I've gotten this much for IFE being broken. If things happened as the OP says, then this is essentially IDB. I know that it may not technically be IDB, but it should be treated as such, and the compensation should be higher (I would say closer to $800-1k voucher and confirmed F on the next flight).

OP, in the future, in a situation like this, it is a good idea to look for a Red Coat. Red Coat is Delta's airport customer service program. Red Coat employees function kind of like supervisors and they are empowered to make on the spot corrections to resolve customer service issues. You can literally identify them because they wear red sport coats, and they are the only ones who do.
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 1:42 pm
  #8  
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Interesting. In theory if the ticket and the reservation weren't linked correctly, a boarding pass shouldn't have been able to be issued at all (the primary function of the check-in process is to check that the reservation and the ticket properly reconcile to each other). So that may have been part of the confusion.

The gate agent really should have been more helpful, and certainly should have taken a minute to try to see what was going on with your ticket before processing standby passengers. But unfortunately they weren't.

And unfortunately not much more can be done about it at this point. Delta offered you miles or cash, which are their currencies of apology. If those don't help, I'm afraid not much else will. You could write a polite, to-the-point, unemotional reply to their original offer and try to get more, if you want, but that's about it.
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 1:47 pm
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Thank you, I didn't know about the Red Coats.
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 2:39 pm
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I'd definitely think about sending a note in on the complaint form at the top of the web page. Keep it short but include any expenses you incurred due to the cancellation, which was due to mechanical issues in my opinion, if the original delay then led to a weather cancellation. Also cite the mix up in the ticket, denied boarding, further delay to a later flight, and top it off with a short statement about the lack of customer empathy.
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 5:14 pm
  #11  
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To me, if the OP was able to do OLCI and get a boarding pass, this indicates that at least at the time of the OLCI, everything was correct with the ticket and reservation. Something happened after than, which makes one wonder whether *Shenanigans* could have occurred here. I'm wondering whether the OP knows anything about those standbys: did they seem to know the GA, were they high tier elites or also displaced passengers who suffered from IROPs, did they seem to be nonrevs, etc.
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 5:43 pm
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Maybe Connie3922 is really Ann Coulter.
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 5:49 pm
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I could see a busy service desk agent putting the new flight into the reservation but not reissuing the ticket.

OP - were you confirmed in First on the original flight? If not, maybe either the system dropped the seat because the eticket didn't match the reservation, or someone else wanted that seat and somehow somewhere it was taken from you for another confirned reservation with the ticket properly issued.

Either way, I always make sure inside the particular trip, after routing or cabin changes are made, that the ticket shows the current date as the date of purchase. You can see this when you're inside the reservation - online, top right, view receipt, or in the app, bottom left, view receipt.

It IS weird that you had an eboarding pass, though, for the new flight. I could see a paper boarding pass issued with the eticket not properly issued - but never heard of that happening with an eboarding pass.

OP - if this ever happens again, you need to speak to the Ticket Reissue Desk. The GA can call the reissue desk with priority to get the ticket fixed during boarding. Why this GA didn't is beyond me, but is obviously unprofessional behavior.

While I have heard of people being offered 10-15K miles for broken IFE, I've never heard of anyone being offered $250 for such (maybe long D1 flight). I think $250 is fair, but OP, if you don't, I think max they would offer is $400 for a Silver with this issue. I would just advise you have a goal in mind. DL will obviously review the situation with the employee and discipline as appropriate - but you won't know the outcome here. I believe they have apologized, so the only other thing they can do is offer compensation to try to recover.
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 6:18 pm
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Originally Posted by Connie3922
As a silver medallion member and frequent Delta traveler, I understand delays and cancellations. Friday I was delayed 3 hours (mechanical and then weather) and the flight was eventually cancelled. I was re-booked on a flight the next day and received a boarding pass and CONFIRMED seat in first class ( original seat was comfort +). I was denied boarding and watched as the gate agent put several stand-bys on the flight. He was extremely rude and insisted I was not on the flight and refused to look at my boarding pass. I went to the PSA desk and was put on stand-by for the next flight. I'm extrememly disappointed and feel like the gate agent behavior was unacceptable. I didn't yell or curse or cause any sort of disruption, yet he threatened to call security on my when I started to cry. I've reached out to Delta and they offered 10,000 miles or a $250 voucher......I don't really want either and I feel like that measly amount is a slap in the face for how I was treated. If this is how they treat loyalty members, what's the point?

What is it you expected. Did you want Delta to tell you they would fire him immediately? They apologized and offered a service recovery.
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Old Jul 17, 2017, 10:39 pm
  #15  
 
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Originally Posted by Asiaflyguy
What is it you expected. Did you want Delta to tell you they would fire him immediately? They apologized and offered a service recovery.
It is obvious what OP wants, did you read the post? Clearly OP feels like OP was mistreated and that the service recovery was inadequate, and came online to FT to seek advice and perhaps sympathy from this frequent flyer community.
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