Originally Posted by
qofmiwok
So it's not even true that if you book directly with Delta you only have to rebook in 1 year, not travel? I saw that on several blogs.
As for searching by ticket number, do you mean on the Delta site? There is a page on the Delta site that says you search by ticket number, but when you go to that website a search by ticket number isn't actually one of the pulldown options. You can search by several things including credit card number, etc. but none of those worked.
No, it's not true. It's covered in the fare rules in Penalties section which you can access on delta.com. Domestically, all travel must be completed by one year from date of ticket issue unless you use hacks to extend validity. There's some nuance with international fares (once travel has commenced, ticket is valid for one year from date of commencement and all travel needs to be completed by then). But if travel has not commenced, the same holds true for international fares.
Delta made several extensions to ticket validity periods during Covid (which overruled fare rule language), but that is all over now (it's been about 2 years since they stopped doing extensions).
Ticket validity section from domestic fare rules below.
----TICKET VALIDITY---- TICKET IS VALID FOR 1 YEAR FROM THE DATE OF ISSUE AND ALL TRAVEL MUST BE COMPLETED WITHIN VALIDITY PERIOD.