Here's the deal. I am going from St. Petersburg (Russia) to New Orleans in a few days, with a ticket I bought about 3 months ago (super cheap!) Delta just informed me of a change in the flights that will get me there about 1/2 hour later than for the original itinerary. The first leg goes from St. Petersburg to Moscow using Aeroflot or some small Russian airline that codeshares with Aeroflot. However there are other flights from St. Petersburg to cities in Western Europe, from which it is relatively easy to get me to New Orleans no later than my original time. However it seems that even though Delta is in some alliance with Aeroflot, because the fare tranche for that leg is not at a higher level than the one I original bought (because of course, it's only a week away instead of months!), Delta will not allow me to make change without paying for the higher fare, which is almost the original fare for the entire round trip!

I'm wondering what I can do. Delta says that because the change results in a delay of no more than 90 minutes, this is not considered a marketing bump. Also, even though the current fare tranche of the St. Petersburg to Moscow flag is also at a higher tranche, Delta will not allow me to use that uprated value for the change. It sounds like the only thing Delta will do is to offer me a complete refund, which I can't do because being less than a week away, I can't any equally cheap ticket.

I'm so angry!