Originally Posted by
Goldorak
If this is a DL positioning flight, clearly book it as a DL award if you can, or a revenue DL ticket. If you book it as a FB award, you know what's going to happen : DL will cancel/reschedule/re-number the flight as they do all the time (it will even happen several times eventually) and you'll be screwed to be rebooked if it is FB award, as there won't be any inventory on the "new" flight. It happens all the time.
And, of course, book this separate flight with ample time (3-4 hrs) before your transatlantic flight.
I hadn’t even thought about that. Clearly you’re right though. What a disaster that would be. And this is such important info to remember going forward!
After reading this, I was resigned to booking the positioning flight on DL and was even thinking I’d spend the day tooling around ATL if I had a long enough connection (lived there decades ago). The FB agent had put the ATL-CDG award on hold for me and I had a PNR; just needed to complete the booking within 3 days. Well my obsessive checking paid off this morning and I found a more complete itinerary from an airport <2 hrs away. I was able to book that, get it ticketed, etc. So I’ve dodged a bullet I suppose. While this isn’t perfect, it’s certainly less stressful than the positioning flight.