Originally Posted by
tvtd
The first question I have is, if the older son took an earlier flight, doesn't that invalidate his later ticket? You can't have two concurrent reservations flying at the same time on the same airline, can you? One of them will be cancelled, won't it?
Second, in this day and age, it is INCREDIBLY naive for anyone to think they can just "swap" tickets to another holder without at least notifying the airline. Period, end of discussion. They paid for the seat. Okay. But to just take your own initiative to say you can then decide who sits in that seat is one of the most self-centered mind boggling events anyone could think of related to air travel these days. The older son needed to fly back earlier. Fine. Call DL, explain the situation. Depending on fare class and the agent you talk to, assume you are going to cancel the older son's ticket and pay for a new one for your infant. Any rationalization otherwise opens the door for actions like human trafficking. What is so hard about this?
Sorry for the rant, I am just so tired of people trying to game the system for their own gain and throwing temper tantrums when they are unsuccessful.
This, this, this, this, this. Absolutely unbelievable.
You are assuming that he is trying to game the system. To me, if I didn't know better, that he could have done what he had done. If he was trying to game the system, he could have said that the 2 y/o had the same name as on the boarding pass. Would they have checked his driver's license?
What I suspect happened, and yes I know it is speculation, is that he called Delta and said "we are travelling on this flight and my 18 y/o son Joe (or what ever the name is) would like to return earlier. Can you get him a return flight on (insert date here)? And of course, the Delta rep did that for him, not picking up on the change.
Inexperience travelers might not think of it immediately, that if you were away, you might want to fly home and return to where you were away. If I was spending 3 weeks in Hawaii, I might need to fly home for a couple of days for a meeting, only to return for the remaining week.
It does not look like he was gaming the system, but just not understanding the rules and the reservation agent not explaining it.