Delta not honouring customer commitment
 

So here's the situation. I purchased a ticket on expedia yesterday, noticed that the fare dropped today on Continental, and called Delta directly to cancel so that I could rebook with Continental. Much to my dismay, they wouldn't refund my ticket. The first agent I spoke with quoted the "best fare guarantee" and said that they couldn't refund a fare within the 24 hour window unless it was purchased directly from Delta. The best fare guarantee does have such a limitation, but there is no mention of this limitation in the customer commitment. I stated that the customer commitment was an independent policy which applied notwithstanding the "best fare guarantee". According to the customer commitment:
I stated that the second bullet merely stated that a customer *may* submit a request for a refund through their travel agent, and that since it was an electronic ticket, I was exercising my discretion to apply for a refund under bullet number 3 (contacting reservations directly). The supervisor didn't accept my argument and stated that all travel agent tickets didn't qualify. When I asked her why the customer commitment covered travel agent issued tickets as evidenced by the reference to travel agents in bullet number two, she held her ground that she couldn't refund a travel agent ticket and told me to write a letter if I wanted to escalate the matter.

Does anybody else here think I have a valid point? Doesn't the Best Rate Guarantee merely supplement the customer commitment? It seems like Delta is dead wrong on this one.

Here's an idea... Cancel through the place you bought it.

If you read the fine print, in the first paragraph of the Terms and Conditions, it says "Available only for eTickets purchased at the time of reservation through Delta ticket offices and airport ticket counters, Reservation Sales, or at delta.com."

As you purchased the ticket from Expedia, Delta will not honor the Risk Free Cancellation.

I think Orbitz has some sort of a best fare guarentee or something like that (I tend to avoid using Orbitz/Expedia/etc. unless absolutely needed). Expedia might have something like that - you might want to get in touch with them, but RFC with Delta for an Expedia-bought ticket is not going to happen.

Contact expedia. You bought it from them.

I tried Expedia....they told me their policy only extends until midnight of the same day as the day I bought the ticket. The Expedia agent was clueless as to exactly what a customer commitment was....I asked her to call Delta and see Delta would tell her. To her credit she did, but she told me that Delta told her that I would have had to purchase the ticket through Delta.

mersk862, I noticed that fine print....but that fine print represents the terms and conditions of the Risk Free Cancellation policy under the Best Rate Guarantee. The contract of carriage incorporate the customer commitment by reference and the customer commitment makes no such reference to tickets purchased only through Delta.

I did that....but why should I have to? The customer commitment states that There is no limitation that only states I *must* go through expedia.

The Customer Commitment certainly applies to tickets purchased though a third party. One is welcome to apply for refunds on eligible tickets through Delta or a TA. A non-refundable ticket bought through a 3rd channel isn't eligible for a refund by the terms of the best fare guarantee. The OP is conveniently ignoring this element, emphasis mine:

3. We will issue refunds for eligible domestic tickets ...

Since it was purchased through Expedia, it is Expedia that the OP should be dealing with.

http://www.expedia.com/daily/highlig...ee/default.asp

Why didn't you just buy from Delta in the first place?

Since this ticket was booked through a third party, an "external ticket handling charge" may also apply.

http://www.delta.com/traveling_check...dex.jsp#change

The purpose of the best fare guarantee is to make people feel that they can get the best deal on a Delta flight when buying directly from Delta. So, it would not apply in reverse - if you bought on Expedia and want to rebook on Delta. However, if you are looking to fly with Continental instead, the best fare guarantee doesn't apply anyway. I think your best bet is to see if Expedia has any kind of grace period that allows you to cancel without fees.

I'm assuming this is a domestic flight, so I pulled up the domestic CofC. The only reference I see to Risk Free Cancellation is that it will cover eligible tickets (on page 44). It doesn't specifically reference what constitutes select tickets. Digging into the website does though, and it's for tickets only purchased at delta.com.

LOL You quote line 3 but you forget about line 1

"1. We will offer on our telephone reservation system, airport ticket counters, and city ticket offices the lowest published fare for which you are eligible for the date, flight, and class of service requested."

Unless there is some other guarantee that I missed on Delta.com, they are guaranteeing the lowest fare on DL metal, not matching/beating another companies fare (i.e. CO).

Thanks for pointing out page 44 of the domestic CofC. Its interesting to note that Rule 200 as incorporated into the domestic CofC on page 44 states that:
The purpose of the customer commitment is different from the purpose of the Best Rate Guarantee. The purpose of the Best Rate Guarantee is to make people comfortable booking on delta.com. The customer commitment is intended to be broader. By its own reference to travel agents, it implies that tickets purchased from a travel agent should qualify as long as travel is wholly within the United States. As for an "eligible" ticket, after I read rule 200 in full, my interpretation is that eligible tickets are those for travel wholly in the United States where the reservation was created either on the day that the refund is requested or the previous day. You can't go to the website to figure out what "eligible" means -- an interpretation of eligible must be clear on the face of the contract.

Also, thanks for pointing out expedia's policy. However, expedia's guarantee only applies for the exact same flights. Since Delta's prices haven't changed (and continental's did), I can't use expedia's guarantee.