The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, I went to check-in on-line and discovered that my flight was canceled. I called Delta, and after about 30 minutes they got me onto a USAir flight. Given weather/high activity, I knew that I was lucky to get home.

I successfully checked-in, went thru security (SSSS and all), went to the gate and asked them to put my USAir number on the ticket, all without a problem. Boarded the plane. Just as the boarding was almost complete, they came on and told me that Delta had never "pushed" the ticket so I'd have to get off the plane so they could leave without me. Luckily I had my itin with ticket number, and the sympathetic gate agent managed to keep me on the plane.

While I've had problems checking in when I've been sent to another airline, I didn't anticipate any problems after getting a boarding pass. So, a word of warning: a boarding pass and getting on the plane doesn't mean you actually have a ticket apparently. So, from now on, I'll always ask the question "Has Delta actually pushed the ticket to you?"

Delta hasn't even bothered to credit the original routing as requested.