I am irked, very irked. After a year of smooth sailing (for the most part), Sunday's experience ticked me off and the canned CS response didn't placate my feeling of getting screwed.
On Sunday I was rebooked on a confirmed seat on a significantly later flight due to help from a great and persistent GA at MCI. I got to Atlanta and found out that someone went into my record and deleted out the confirmed seat for a flight that there was no chance of misconnecting to (originally a scheduled 9:25pm departure, flight from MCI was originally scheduled in at 6:15 but delayed to 8:00ish) the confirmed flight.
No one can figure out why they would remove a Platinum on a FULL Y ticket (or any pax w/a confirmed seat). I ended up spending 2+ hours trying to haggle my way onto a flight instead of relaxing and having a drink in the CRC. What turned from a great CS experience turned into a nightmare.
So I emailed Delta (see below) and the agent seemed to just cut and paste in a reply. Below is my email, their reply and my reply.
Hello,
I wanted to write in about my flight yesterday. Due to the delays encountered yesterday, I was rerouted with a confirmed seat ATL-MCO last night on flight 981 ATL-MCO by the gate agent at MCI. She provided me with flight interruption paperwork when I boarded flight 1612 MCI-ATL.
When I arrived in ATL I rechecked my itinerary and my CONFIRMED seat (with seat assignment) had been removed from my record and in its place a morning flight ATL-MLB was showing. I had not authorized any agent to make that change and neither I, Special Member Services or the Crown Room or Gate Agents working the flights could understand how I was removed from a confirmed seat on an aircraft where I had not missed the connection or the flight.
The removal of this confirmed seat led me to 1.5 hours of wandering from gate to crown room to gate trying to play standby on multiple flights, added innumerable stress to my evening.
Please let me know how this happened and why it was able to happen and what will be done about it.
Would you like a reply to your e-mail?:yes
Delta Reply
Dear WBurcham,
Thank you for your e-mail describing your recent experience with Delta. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your taking the time to share the details.
As near as I can tell, due to the many delays and cancelations, it looked like flight 1612 would arrive too late to make the connection to 981 and the decision was made to remove customers and begin reprotection. As it turned out, eventually flight 981 was delayed also, and unfortunately you were not rebooked on 981.
During irregular operations, the situation can change several times and a previous good business decision turns into a bad one. I apologize that you were inconvenienced.
Again, thank you for writing. Please accept our apology for the inconvenience you experienced. We look forward to serving you under better circumstances.
Sincerely,
My response to their canned email:
No. That is 100% not the case. I arrived in Atlanta BEFORE the scheduled departure (and was always scheduled as such) of 981. Someone removed me from the flight as a confirmed passenger. I cannot fathom how someone would do that for a Platinum on a Full Fare ticket.
I spoke to the gate agent working 981 and she had not removed me. I was removed in error by someone and no one could figure out who or why.
The poor followup like this is continuing to make me question my loyalty to Delta. Please provide me with an adequate answer as to why I was removed from the flight that I would not misconnect to (there was 1+ hour between the scheduled late arrival of 1612 and the original departure time of 981).
This was not a simple error due to Irregular Operations, this was agent error that caused a Platinum on a Full Fare ticket to not be able to realize the value of a full fare ticket.