karthik

So technically the title is wrong since I did a JFK-LAS-JFK run last year, but that was more like a quick mileage jaunt. I was going to be 5k short of requalifying for Gold on DL, so I figured that I'd just go all-out and make it to Plat for next year since I was going to do an MR anyways and had a good bit of free time this month.

I booked BOS-ATL-LAS-FLL-MCO-JFK-FRA-JFK-BWI-BOS all on a single DL itinerary, departing on Dec 2. With the double bonus mile credit on JFK-FRA-JFK it was quite lucrative for RDMs on top of pretty cheap EQMs. The run got off to a great start: BOS-ATL-LAS-FLL were all upgraded ahead of time, and BOS-ATL was on an international J config 763. (No idea what one of those was doing in BOS!)

Everything had been uneventful when I got to MCO, where I had a 6 hour layover, the longest of my trip. (Arrived MCO at 9:40AM, departure to JFK was at 3:29PM.) I headed to the Crown Room Club to wait out my layover. Went down to the gate 30 minutes before departure, handed my boarding pass to the gate agent who scanned it, and headed onto the jetbridge...where I stood in line for about 15 seconds before two agents came up and said "Please come with us, sir" after showing their badges. I figured they just wanted to ask me a few quick questions; I had printouts of my itinerary and my DL account history with me in case of something like that. As we headed back off the jetbridge, I asked them if Delta would reaccommodate me if I missed my flight. They told me that yes, I would be.

As we headed away from the gate area, I realized this was going to be a bit more drawn out than I expected. I was escorted down to the MCO police station, and the agents took me into a room for my "interview." The agents were an FBI agent and a Federal Air Marshall, with the FBI agent taking the lead on the questioning. I explained the whole mileage run bit to them (and pointed out the FlyerTalk tag on my bag, the first time I'd travelled with it even! The FAM actually seemed intrigued with the concept of a MR.)

I was told that I had been flagged due to my unusual travel pattern. They also told me that they had been paging me in the gate area, AND that they'd called up to the CRC twice to see if I was there. The CRC made no announcement for me to come up, apparently just looking at people who'd entered with a CRC membership: I was using my Priority Pass, and they told whoever called up that I was not there since they didn't bother to look at the Priority Pass sign-in sheet. The agents later told me that maybe they hadn't paged me because I might leave, which is ridiculous since they had been paging me in the gate area, which would be far easier to sneak away from than a CRC!

I was questioned for an hour and a half or so. This involved a pat down, fully emptying out my wallet and searching my carry-on, and going through my computer. The FAM took my computer aside so I couldn't see what she was doing, but since my browser and mail clients had been close I figured she was looking at my bookmarks/browser history and my email mainly.

Later on, the FBI agent wanted to know what was in the external drive I had with me—mostly some movies, but I also had several gigabytes of unsorted pictures, so we spent a good deal of time (with me watching this time) looking through some pictures. I got asked tons of questions about affiliations with various groups, my personal background, employment history, etc. They actually asked me almost nothing about my past year of travel which was mostly outside the US: in fact, I don't think they did more than a rudimentary glance through my passport. So I guess the questioning was to try to trip me up by looking for responses that didn't match up.

The agents were fairly friendly after I explained the MR concept to them, at least. But I was amazed that the FAM hadn't heard of mileage runs; I could understand the FBI agent not knowing about them, but you'd think a FAM would know about such things. Anyways, the questioning finally ended, and I was cleared to fly. Unfortunately, at that point I'd missed my flight, and missed any possible connection to FRA the same day.

The agents escorted me over to the DL ticket counter...where I assumed they'd rebook me as the agents had said when we were leaving the jetbridge. But nope, I was told that I would have to pay a $2500 or so change fee on my $550 ticket. Making it worse, the fare had broken as BOS-LAS/LAS-FRA/FRA-BOS, so since I'd already flown part of the LAS-FRA fare there was no way I could get a refund for the FRA roundtrip part which was the majority of the ticket price. I asked the GA as well as her supervisor if they could count this under the flat tire rule, as it was within 2 hours of my original departure. As I understood it, the flat tire rule applied to various things outside the passenger's control. But, nope, the supervisor said that unless I actually had a flat tire she could not make the change for free. They wouldn't even fly me back home using the remaining ticket value.

Fortunately, a one-way MCO-ATL-BOS ticket at the last minute was only $98 all-in, so I did that and returned home. (I bought it from delta.com with my laptop to get the online booking bonus, of course, even though I was standing at the ticket counter!) At least both legs got upgraded, which gave me some solace after the experience I'd endured. Finally, the agents had earlier asked that, as a favor, I would not write about this experience; I told them there were plenty of other things of this type online, but assured them I wouldn't refer to their names of course and they seemed okay with that reply. The FBI/DHS agents left after I'd booked my return flight (and noted down the flight numbers, probably to clear me to fly), and I went through security with no problems...or so I thought.

I headed back up to the CRC for a bit, and asked them to check my boarding pass to make sure everything was okay. It turned out that I was supposed to have secondary screening, but I hadn't. So they had to make a couple calls, and reissued me a BP that was SSSSed. Now, I was already INSIDE security at this point! I headed to the gate area as told, and they did the secondary right there. Cleared that fine, boarded, and went home a bit worse for the wear. Interestingly, when I checked my SkyMiles account later there was an entry for 5000 miles from "MCO FTO Q." I guess one of the agents randomly credited me miles as a friendly gesture.

So my major issues here in a nutshell:
- Why would the DHS or whoever decide to detain me in MCO after I'd already flown 4 flight legs? I'd booked the trip a couple weeks in advance, so there's no reason they couldn't have come by my house or stopped me in BOS before I actually flew across the country and back.
- The agents told me that DL would reaccommodate me. I do not consider a $2000 change on a $550 ticket to fit the definition of such.
- They gave me secondary screening AT THE GATE—after I was already in the sterile airside zone, walking around it by myself with ample opportunity to hand off whatever to whoever. Not to mention it's a bit intrusive to screen me at the gate; I suppose I could've asked for a private screening, but I just wanted to get home at that point. The only way to make the airside zone sterile again would be to have ALL passengers exit security and be rescreened.
- DL did not reasonably follow the spirit of the "flat tire" rule. That's not as big of an issue; more importantly, I was in the DL-operated CRC and the DHS folks had asked DL to help locate me. If I had been located quickly, I would have made my flight since the agents said they'd been there since around 1PM.

So I'm not fully sure what to do at this point. I've been put in touch with a civil liberties contact at the DHS, so I'll send them a writeup for their own records at least. And I sort of feel like the DHS and DL are both at fault for not finding me earlier, and annoyed at the DHS' false statement that I would be reaccommodated on later flights.

I made another MR a few days later, BOS-ANC and back. No problems checking in, getting through security, or doing the quick turn in ANC. So at least I'm not on a permanent-SSSS list it seems.

Any suggestions on where exactly to go from this point would be appreciated. Part of me just wants to drop the issue and let it go—but I also feel like I'm owed my money back by someone as a matter of principle, and also feel like this is an opportunity to point out the existing flaws in the system further.