Originally Posted by
ogilicious
i'm not quite sure this can be considered "circumventing fare rules" because for any specific booking the amount of points was deducted, it's not an unpaid reservation (travel agencies could do this). the fact that delta allows for overlapping bookings is the issue. they can't even properly prohibit those because there's a technical possibility to have two overlapping return flights and use another itinerary on a different airline that wouldn't make this visibly "impossible".
you provided links to verbiage that is vague. and that's all i'm saying. they could state pretty clearly that "booking multiple overlapping bookings" should be prohibited. you also seem to be mixing up legalities (which is what the contract of carriage is) vs. what people think or feel. legally, it's hard to define "fictitious" or "impossible" without providing the exact definition in the opening part of the contract. i purport that it's nothing but deterrence language but it's hard to tell what they're deterring people from - perhaps from doing exactly what the OP was doing, but that's very hard to prove.
also a bit more respect when you discuss things with people rather than accusatory language wouldn't hurt anybody. i am not really even doing any of these things, i just think it's hard to cull this practice using this coc language.
It is clear and the only ones to whom it isn't clear are the ones who are looking for ways to game the system and/or relying on a low probability of being caught. It may be difficult for the airline to fully prove but it is absolutely circumventing fare rules. If you buy trips for multiple weekends or multiple days or multiple locations because you don't know which day you will actually travel to or what place you will travel to so as to get a cheaper fare now and to avoid paying a fare difference once your plans firm up, you are doing so to circumvent fare rules and the higher fares that (usually) come with closer-in bookings and fare differences that can arise from your plans changing. Those who do this feel justified in "screwing the carrier" who they feel have screwed them over in ways or feel it's okay to stick to a company making billions while their amount isn't even close to a rounding error in the airline's balance sheet. But what they don't care about is that they're also screwing over other people who are now being blocked from having access to that seat / inventory.
Last edited by ATOBTTR; Apr 8, 2023 at 8:33 am