Originally Posted by ExpatExp

Thanks very much for all this info and advice. The flight eventually departed 3:59 late, which would have had me landing just as my meeting was ending. In that case I would have just ended up waiting in the airport for my return flight.

I described the situation to the gate agent and she said she would make a note in the reservation and gave me a preprinted card with Delta's "service recovery" number. I called them and got through to someone within about ten seconds, despite the fact that I have no DL status. The rep was friendly and helpful and said he needed to get a supervisor to process the refund, which he did, based on the fact that the ticket had been purchased less than 24 hours earlier.

After the refund had been processed, I asked what would have happened if I had bought the ticket more than 24 hours ago. The rep said that DL also had a policy to cover situations where a trip would have ended up being pointless and that my ticket would have been refunded in that situation also.

I don't know why they chose to process the refund based on the >24 hours policy rather than the pointless trip policy (not the official name of the policy -- I don't know the official name). But I should have asked!

Note that when I called to ask for the ticket to be refunded, the flight had not yet started boarding. At the time of my call, the flight was 1:42 late and subject to a ground stop.

Thanks again for all your help.