fti

Yesterday online I booked a domestic award ticket with a less-than-desirable return (thinking I might SDC to a different flight). I had until Wed evening to have the ticket issued. Today I checked online and my preferred flight became available (I verified this by looking only at OW travel and seeing 25K mile availability). I couldn't seem to change it online, though I tried.

So I called PMS and asked them to change it. First of all, she said she only saw the mileage level at 32,500 for that flight. Then when I said I saw it for 25,000 miles online, she looked again and said she could "force it" (her words) for 25,000 miles. I find that horrendous. Why not just be honest and give me the award for the level it is supposed to be at, and which I just confirmed seconds earlier online? This is deception at its best.

Then when I asked to verify the ticketing deadline being tomorrow evening (I still need to confirm with traveling companions from other cities), she said that if she touches the reservation, it requires immediate ticketing. I know this is absolutely untrue since I have booked online, made a change on the phone, then paid online because they wanted to charge me a $20/person ticketing fee for all non-elites in my PNR.

So I told her to not change anything. I went to delta.com, made an entirely new reservation, then canceled the old one. What a way to treat your PM customers!!

Until DL will get its act together and treat its customers with some respect, they will continue to get complaints. And there will continue to be such posts on FT. (for those not interested in another such post, feel free to click on the next thread and just ignore this one ).

monkeshine

Just a couple of ideas. Confirm the low fare availability in both directions. From my experience it is 25,000 or 40,000 so 32,500 makes it seem like you might be paying low one way and mid the other. You can see that by using the calendar to verify the availability.

As a general rule I try not to assume that the people I am working with think the same way I do, or are looking at things the same way I am. Not to belittle her or her job but she is a ticket agent for an airline, and even that is a difficult job with many of the changes and even the recent rule changes. Sometimes suggestions work. As you were able to suggest to her that the 25,000 award was available... so I am not sure why you didn't stop when you got what you wanted. She said "force it" but why should you care what words she uses to get you what you want? Anyway you certainly could have suggested further that she could hold it for you and maybe she could "force" that too.

In general, when I get what I want, I stop asking for it. It's like the old salesman's rule - once you've made the sale, stop selling.

If you aren't sure you are going to take the ticket at 25,000 and you just wanted the agent to make an Award Reservation, I must say this appears slightly abusive of the system. You were already holding one reservation that was about to expire, then you found a better deal but you didn't want to book it you wanted to hold it for another 72 hours?

Personally I think this kind of behavior is the reason why they raised the change fee for Award seats, and it is also the reason why it is so hard to find low availability unless you check early and often. Too many people putting stuff on hold that they aren't sure they are going to take.

Just my $0.02

fti

Yes, 32,500 miles is a combination and I only assumed that it meant 40K on the return. And I *did* confirm low availability in both directions yesterday, just not on the return flight I wanted!

No abuse of the system here at all. Just taking advantage of what DL allows. I book an award ticket online and can hold it for two days, while I confirm that the flight times work with family members flying from other cities. If their flight times won't work and we need to make a change to theirs, I prefer to arrive about the same time as them. That is why I didn't want my ticket issued yet.

When on the phone with the agent, I just wanted to confirm that I *still* had until Wednesday evening to have the ticket issued, which is what delta.com gave me yesterday as a ticketing deadline. Only when she said I needed to have the ticket issued immediately (my guess now: bonus or commission for each ticket issued), did I say to ignore what work she already did. By making a new booking on delta.com, it created more work and time on my part. Having the extra day to ticket is irrelevant, since the other family members' reservations still have the deadline of tomorrow night. I only made the new booking with the desired return flight because I could not change the return flight in the existing booking online.

So your speculation is incorrect and your $.02 is only worth about $.005. But I appreciate your response.

Astriker

I would not say abuse, I would say considering options. I have tickets on hold under similar, waiting for my family to confirm they can go. When I switched to DL, I was somewhat surprised by a few things

- Award Calendar for low inventory is mostly inaccurate
- More calls to the center versus online activity to get same tasks done (waived with my AMEX)
- Redeposit fee after 2, which was unlimited under previous carrier

I know DL is different but I would not say it's abusing the system.

judolphin

Seriously?

fti

And AA allows anyone, even general members with no status, to have unlimited changes to award tickets once issued, so long as the origin and destination cities remain unchanged.

monkeshine

Yes seriously.

Look at your tag line " I'll spend more money with you if you promise not to steal $150 from me when my plans change."

Do you really think that these issues are unrelated? It is now nearly free to book an Award, but costs more to change it. Why do you think they did that? To "steal" or maybe to keep more availability considering the sheer volumes of people trying to get awards and complaining about the lack of avails?

Do you not think the #1 reason for lack of low Awards availability is because people are holding reservations they are not sure they will take? How else do you explain the phenomenon of Low fares opening up here and there when previously not available like the OP was able to find 2 days after his original reservation - it is because someone else held an Award they weren't sure they were going to take, and then canceled or changed it.

To me this is just plain obvious. I'm surprised most others don't get it. But fine, the system allows it, so do it. And the complaints will continue but I suppose that is no skin off my teeth either.

judolphin

I really don't follow your logic. WN does fine without change fees. Better in fact, than DL does with change fees.

No, I don't. I think the reason is that DL has a ridiculously low number of Low awards available per flight.

The whole concept of holding a reservation when you have the miles, is that you're not sure if you're taking the trip. If you were sure, you wouldn't hold it.

The fact it can be held regardless of mileage balance means it is by design and is not an "abuse" of the system.

I think you're the one who doesn't get the concept of being able to hold a seat when you're not sure if you want to travel or not

bubbashow

Yes seriously.

Look at your tag line " I'll spend more money with you if you promise not to steal $150 from me when my plans change."

Do you really think that these issues are unrelated? It is now nearly free to book an Award, but costs more to change it. Why do you think they did that? To "steal" or maybe to keep more availability considering the sheer volumes of people trying to get awards and complaining about the lack of avails?

Careful, there Monkeshine! They don't like it when you approach things with common sense. After all, NW used to let us reserve an entire 747, specially equipped with ALL WBC at only 25,000 miles a ticket roundtrip to Asia and NEVER charged us a fee. How DARE DL try to make money?

flymonthly

There may be some Low fares that open up here and there as the result of people releasing held award reservations. However, from what I see, Low award seats tend to open up in bunches rather than singly which would indicate to me that Delta, for whatever reason, decided to add more seats in Low.

bubbashow

It's called inventory management. Of course there are more added when it is obvious a flight won't sell out.

monkeshine

Well we're not talking about WN. We're talking about DL. DL used to charge in some cases to book an Award. Now they do not. However, they added to the fee for those who book an Award and cancel. To me this appears more like a trade-off, not theft.

Perhaps DL holds large numbers of Award seats and then releases them at the last minute. That would make sense to those who believe DL is out to screw their FFers who plan well in advance. I don't believe DL is trying to screw their FFers. Maybe it is true in fact, and if so it needs to be corrected such that miles get credited back in order of those who booked e.g. if you book a high award and a medium or low become available later miles should be credited back automatically. They guarantee fare price why couldn't they do the same with awards? This seems like a good mission for the members of this board to lobby for. Since anyone could check later for low Awards why not automate the process and keep people from feeling cheated?

At the end of the day if WN is the better choice then more people would migrate to them. DL can do what it does because it can, but it also doesn't seem incredibly abusive either. We discussed this on another thread recently so I won't go all into the details but if you hold an Award there are multiple costs to the airline including opportunity costs. If you change your plans those opportunity costs could turn into real losses including the loss of a paid customer or an empty seat flying that may have otherwise flown full. Why should anyone have that much control over the airlines' seats? I am in business and I do not let my customers control my inventory for very long. They place an order, I make and ship it. If they change the order before I start making it there is no cost, but if once they start using my resources they pay in one way or another. I'm sure if it was your business and your inventory you would feel the same way about customers being able to place near unlimited holds on them at no real benefit to you.

fti

Correct, I do NOT think this is the #1 reason (or #2 or #3 for that matter). This was *supposed* to be the reason before DL changed their redeposit fees for PM's. *Apparently* PM's were booking hundreds if not thousands or award tickets then not showing up for the flights. Well, now that there is a fee, technically this happens much less frequently (if it really happened that much at all).

The #1 reason for lack of low award availability is DL's desire to milk its frequent flyers of their Skymiles. Plain and simple. Period. End of story. Star Alliance and American have many, many more low level awards available whenever I have checked them as well as Delta.

Sorry, I think it is YOU who doesn't get it. I know for a fact that just because someone cancels an award seat, it does not always end up back in award availability for someone else. Also, not only did the flight I wanted all of a sudden become available, several other flights on the same day became available. It had nothing to do with that many people just "happening" to cancel their award seats for all those flights...in the last 24 hours (not 2 days).

Delta just happened to add more award availability - partly, as was mentioned above, because their sophisticated yield management system decided it was time to release award inventory.

If your theory is correct (it's not), then all low award inventory would be available 331 days before departure and the only way to obtain low award inventory after that would be if someone canceled their award ticket. There is overwhelming evidence on the Delta forum that this is absolutely not true.

bubbashow

The #1 reason for lack of low award availability is DL's desire to milk its frequent flyers of their Skymiles. Plain and simple. Period. End of story. Star Alliance and American have many, many more low level awards available whenever I have checked them as well as Delta.

It works the same way as airfares. Try a walk-up ATL-SFO on a Thursday evening and see what they charge (ANY airline). Sounds like Star or American should be your preferred carrier.

judolphin

DL (#1 airline worldwide) has only 15% more pax than WN (#2 airline worldwide) despite having seven times (450-67) the number of destinations, and despite fares on competitive routes nearly always being comparable. This implies that all things being equal, people choose WN.

And WN is always profitable, while DL is always not (for the past decade, at least).

You simply have to look at the differences in how they do business to see what WN is doing right to attract pax, and DL is doing wrong. This is one of the foremost.