willnyc

I recently flew DTW-SLC. I had a complimentary upgrade. When I boarded the plane, there was another pax in my seat. It turned out we both had the same seat assignment, 3D. There were no other seats in the business cabin. The FA's called a GA. Given that the doors were about to shut, and it seemed selfish to hold up a flight with 200 people on it, we agreed to flip a coin. I lost.

I just called DL customer service and spoke with a supervisor. They don't dispute in any way that this was their mistake. She said they could give me a $100 voucher or 5000 skymiles. She seemed sympathetic, but insisted that the only thing I could do was email DL corporate.

I would think they would, at minimum, give me some sort of upgrade for a flight of equal or greater length. Has anyone had luck "escalating" to the corporate address?

AndyTLe

I actually think the compensation options that you received were quite generous, especially for a complimentary upgrade. A mistake was made and I believe what DL has offered is fair. Was it ever explained to you why this mistake occurred?

Now if this was a PAID seat in the premium cabin, then that's a different story.

mvoight

This doesn't make sense. The computer would have shown only one person assigned to the seat. It doesn't sound like they looked it up. This should have taken seconds. Alternatively, didn't the FA have manifest listing the passsengers in their respective seats? It is NOT possible for two people to be assigned a seat at the same time. Someone did not have a valid bp for that seat on that flight. It is possible that someone had the seat assignment and something changed.

xliioper

I once boarded and found someone in my FC seat. He showed me his boarding pass, and sure enough, it was the same seat. However, on closer inspection, he realized the boarding pass was from his inbound flight to DTW. Oops. He found the correct boarding pass and switched seats (which was still in FC, so he wasn't trying to pull a fast one).

mnredfox

5K miles for giving up your F seat is a steal - the old guarantee for PE's was only 1K...

ifette

I would take the $100 ECV over the 5k miles. Miles are worthless these days... $0.005/mi seems like the new rate post-merger.

AndyTLe

And with the $100 voucher, miles can be earned.

ung1

This can happen sometimes. Happened to my father on an Etihad flight once. He was booked in Biz and found someone else in his seat with a BP with the same seat number. He was moved to F.

Thomas Hudson

Always check the date and the flight on them... it is usually wrong... I know of at least one thime when it was totally intentional...

remember the old days when they had a sticker board that looked like the plane at the gate? People would check in and you would watch the seat stickers slowy dissapear, hoping a first class seat would not be the next one pulled?

AndyTLe

That's one heck of an upgrade!

Come to think of it, I had this problem on NW last year (post-merger). Got onboard, I had 1C and someone was already in my seat. I stepped back out into the jetway, gate agent grabbed my BP and came back with a new BP for the other person (still up front). I always thought that the gate scanners would recognize a conflict such as this, but I guess not.

Task Force DL

During the merger integration, this happened to me several times on itineraries that mixed DL and NW when I was on an "A" fare. One time, they downgraded some poor dude in SLC because he was in my seat. I felt bad (but not bad enough to take his middle seat in Y) This hasn't happened since September though (for me).

TFD

Wiirachay

^ A very gentlemanly way of handling the situation. I think rock, paper, scissors or "eenie meenie mawnie mo" would've been more amusing. "The gate agent said to pick the very best one and you are it."

ung1

Yea, I think the rest of the J cabin was full, otherwise they would have just switched seats. And the fact that he has Gold on Etihad probably helped, because they went away for a minute, probably to check who had more tier miles/ higher status. I guess one of the big advantages of a much smaller FF program is the higher frequency of op-ups.

jimrpa

The operative word here is "complimentary". Frankly, I don't think Delta owes you anything beyond a sincere, heartfelt apology for the mixup.

The "coin toss" was creative. Of course, if I were on a Y fare and the other guy was on a T fare, I'd be more than disappointed. I certainly hope the GA looked at fare classes before offering the coin toss option.

Pharaoh

We were once on a MH 777 to Bali in the business cabin. Only 4 or 5 total passengers in business, out of a couple dozen seats. F was empty so the FAs invited us all to move to the first class cabin, pick any seat, and enjoy. ...and then they actually apologized because it would still be the business class meal!