That is one way of looking at it. Another is that they were unable to uphold the contract that you and delta entered into when you purchased the ticket and therefore would be required to cover your hotel & reasonable other costs as per the COC but instead you chose to cancel and be refunded the unused portion of the ticket. They gave you a good will gesture because the whole thing was bad PR for Delta since they're ATL centered. That's the difference between the airline screwing something up (making things good/compensation), operations wholly outside their control (weather) and things such as operational limitations (your situation) where they have a duty of care.
Originally Posted by
tomaszp
Thank you for all your replies. Delta did refund the unused portion of the ticket and I've also received a bonus of 7500 miles as a good gesture.
Jordyn, I will try to submit a claim to Chase, as you've suggested, but I'm not optimistic. I've saved Delta money (they would have covered my hotel in MTJ and then in ATL the next day) and all they could offer was 7500 bonus miles.