I just had enough with Delta!! Diamond Medallion has the highest level of revenue requirement compare to UA and AA. DL gets you 4 GUCs where as UA gives 6 GUCs. The 4 GUC is incredibly hard to use. I've flown a lot of international flights and always saw D1 seats given to employees and non-rev customers and GUC gets very low priority.

Lucky me, so I thought, I got cleared for HKG->SEA several weeks ago before I left the US - everything looked good. 24-hr check-in alert received, so I went to check-in and system told me I don't have a ticket. After an hour of talking to the night-time Medallion desk agent, the only reason they can concoct up is I didn't pay an upgrade tax. Dumbfounded, I looked through all the terms and conditions, and there is not a single language about Medallion upgrade is subject to additional tax. I challenged the clearly inexperienced night agent to explain the tax. What they struggled to come up with is the G3 tax, 3 runway construction tax at HKG of $2 and some odd cents, the difference between an economy seat and first/business class seat. I never received any email about the unpaid tax or any indication of something is wrong. I researched this on the HK side and government-published directive indicate there is a 3RS Airport Construction Fee in effective since 8/1/2016 that shows a 180HKD tax for first/business and 160HKD tax for economy. The directive also had FAQs including a condition that if a passenger is ticketed in economy and received upgrade to first/business class, the additional collection of the difference is not necessary. This make sense - consider if an airline oversold in economy and has the op-up a passenger, would you go collect the additional tax while the passenger is at the gate or even possibly already on the plane? No!

I am blown away that Delta would screw its most loyal customers with this nonsense. No terms and conditions, no email, no system messages told me I had to pay this tax. No one would argue about the $2 tax even if it needs to be collected, but the way Delta would hold hostage a passenger's international ticket for this backend issue is just disgusting...and these night time inexperienced agents just adds insult to the injury. When I agreed to pay the tax (who wouldn't) just to get my ticket back, they freakin' didn't have a way to process payment!!!

During this ordeal, I got lectured by a night-time agent, sounded like in her 20s but with a heavy accent, that it should check my emails for these taxes. Genius, I did, no such email was received. I asked her to tell what time the system sent it, she couldn't - just make up crap as she go and that I should know of all the airport taxes of every destination I go to. It doesn't seem to occur to her, that those who are constantly flying live a pretty busy and likely stressful life - who has time for this non-sense... What passenger in their right mind, checks for airport and government taxes - we trust the airlines would calculate the taxes accurately. I have never been more serious about leaving Delta for UA or AA...