Yesterday I had to book a flight MSN-XXX-CLE for a Tuesday-Wednesday turnaround. First run-through: $705. My goodness.

So, I decided to try MKE. Even worse. All connections via DTW or CVG.

Throwing my hands in the air (I'm not spending $700+ dollars if I can help it), I headed to Expedia. And there's a DL itinerary MKE-ATL-CLE-ATL-MKE for $387 all-in.

OK, so I went back to DL.bomb and selected multi-city and booked the exact same itinerary listing 4 specific flights and chose the same flights as the Expedia itinerary. $387 all-in. Bought it.

Miserable, miserable website and booking engine. I wonder how many people would've accepted $700 as the best fare and bought the ticket. I really miss NWA.com and its price/schedule option, which always worked great for me.

And I wonder how many passengers went to the Continental web site and purchased a $450 ticket beleiving it was the best possible deal?
This is not a sub-par award calendar that costs you customer satisfaction, this is a failure that drives paying customers customer away and could turn out into a liability (since it violates DL's comitment to offer the lowest available fare).
DL.COM is one of the few areas where DL could have done a better job during the integration, I hope it doesn't cost them too much busienss.

DLP

Recently I have found that Expedia even notifies me of upgrades well before delta.com does!

To be honest, I only use delta.com when I may bwant to cancel within 24 hours or when the booking bonus miles make it worth the trouble.

Hey you're lucky that you got the same iteneary on delta.dumb for the same price. For me earlier this week the exact same iteneary (same dates, same flights - six total), etc. was coming out as a K fare and $700+ on Delta.dumb. It was $200 less as ~$500 on expedia.com as a U fare. Exactly the same, all six flights (and of course dates) identical. On Delta exactly the same pieced together would still come out to more at a twice to thrice higher fare class mix.

Lesson learned: never book on delta.dumb

Booking on Expedia still it's charged by Delta direct, so still get AmEx bonus miles, and I think still can cancel online at delta.com w/in 24 hours (as it was charged by Delta and not Expedia, so really just the front end used to book was different; and from Orbitz I know can cancel w/in 24 hours, no matter who charges always). So really no reason to ever book on delta.dumb.

I tend to have the opposite experience. but a few times delta has said a fare is no longer available and I would go to amex travel and it will say 1 left and I buys it.

Use Kayak, it'll connects you directly to the itinerary you want and you can use it to compare prices with other carriers.

Better yet, use Kayak to find the flights you want, and then use Kayak to direct you to DL to purchase your ticket.

At least Kayak will get a small commision for showing you the itinerary that DL.dumb couldn't

I tend to use ITA to look for options, and then try like hell to get them to show up on dl.com...with limited success. If I can't get it on dl.com, I can usually get it on Orbitz...

+1

Although for more complicated itineraries Kayak often doesn't list delta.com as an option but cheaptickets.com or orbitz.com work...

I agree - I usually use a mixture of kayak, expedia, orbitz to find the best deals and have found that using multi city on DL.com I can get the same rate, but don't see why it really makes a difference to book on DL.com. Like the other posters, most come across my amex as Delta, so I don't lose the bonus card miles for DL purchases.

And if you are really a tight wad like me, I go thru a site like fatwallet.com that gives a set cash back on tickets/percentage of cost on packages using expedia/orbitz/travelocity. It's not alot, but its something.

If you are charitable, using goodshop.com will net the charity of your choice a small percentage of purchases on DL.com