ArlingtonTraveler

How do you get to the manual issue desk? I am guessing you waited for the itinerary to ticket and then called
reservations and say you needed to make a change?

ArlingtonTraveler

Hey, I have what may be a newbie question, so I apologize if it was answered in the thread. AA has a rule on AAdvantage partner reservations that if you are flying a partner, then they can only ticket between destinations that the partner has a published fare between the origin and destination. Does DL have any similar limitation like that on Skymiles redemptions?

RealHJ

Or just ask for Global Ticketing Support, or manual reissue (where they price it manually and have access to do things right vs. the extremely buggy and untested way it's automated).

RealHJ

No, though some ignorant res agents will try to claim so as an excuse (one of many made-up ones) for the serious bugs in how the DL dumbed down res system works and forces you to take circuitous many fold longer routing and disallows booking more direct routing and the more logical connections (e.g. what you can fly in 8 hours and where there is plenty of availability, DL will force you to fly over 28 hours and 2-3x longer flying distance). A good agent at GTS though can normally fix that, though it can take a few tries to get to someone who cares (DL staff are really demoralized and just don't care about customers, given how strong the anti-customer attitude is coming from top down).

gooselee

My HUCA tonight failed to produce results - I guess the B squad is on. Second agent wouldn't even call GTS to manually price it because "they get mad at us when we do that".

But while I'm waiting to call during tomorrow's normal hours - does anyone know whether point-to-point ticketing with partners is still possible to generate a single ticket at the price of the long leg?

Situation is I found KL flights on the days I want. BOS-AMS is showing 75k, and AMS-BGO is showing 25k. All KL flight #s and KL metal. I'm hoping I can just get BOS-AMS-BGO for 75k all-in. If I have to do additive pricing then I'll just take AMS-BGO in coach (it's still a good deal vs. cash pricing), but I do want to keep it all on one PNR along with my return which tonight's agents couldn't seem to figure out either.

flyerCO

It depends on the partner. For KLM, yes if all flights are KL or KL/DL. Started running into this last year.

gooselee

Awesome, thanks! Hopefully the inventory is still there when I call tomorrow morning. And even with additive pricing, they should still be able to string a bunch of fare components into a single ticket/PNR, correct?

The positioning flight I need I'm happy to do in Y and the miles vs. cash is right (actually still pretty good for FC, too). But I'd like to not have separate PNRs if I can.

flyerCO

Can't have cash/award on same ticket. However it's a moot point. DL will protect across their tickets and you can ask bags be checked across.

gooselee

Yeah, just trying to avoid the extra hassle at check-in. FWIW it would be all miles tickets; just perhaps different class of service for one of the legs.

gooselee

Update: Tried again tonight and got through to a great agent. Did a few searches on his own, then took the flights I found and was able to reprice the whole thing as one through ticket. All up front, no change to mileage, and just a few extra bucks in taxes. DL's senior agents can really come through sometimes!

RealHJ

No. Delta is no longer able to do that. Reservations AND Global Ticketing Support now are insisting that even things like a typical KE-KE connection at ICN, if it doesn't come up dullta.com, have to be booked as separate tickets and they refuse to put it under one PNR/ticket even with additive pricing (that used to work until last year IME, but apparently no longer so). I had an agent try - really hard, in all the possible ways - but it didn't work and she was turned down by GTS also, told that connections that don't show up in the dumbed down new res system have to be booked as two separate tix now.

I mean this for award tix. Revenue you can buy broken additive aware, but apparently award no more. Whole point is to force you to give up booking multiple tix that cost less as additive and buy a more circuitous routing more expensive fare that DL does want to sell you.

gooselee

Not saying I doubt your experience, but the call I had last night was very different.

The flights I wanted would not pull up as a complete journey on DL.com search - neither for award or cash. Couldn't even force them in using the connections option on the multi-city search. They would of course come up one-by-one if I tried. The agent I was working with, using whatever system he was working in, very quickly found/suggested options that looked available to him but didn't appear at all on my DL.com search, either as complete journeys or single segments.

While I did end up eventually getting ticketed as a single through fare, as we were working routes/options the stuff he was saying about how it would price and possibly needing to mix cabins clearly indicated he was assembling a broken award fare under a single ticket/PNR. He would say things like, "since the first leg is only available in coach, it might price as two different fares and cost you an extra 15k miles even though it's on the same ticket - are you okay with that?"

I seem to be pretty lucky with the agents I get, even if it does take a couple HUCAs. Even a prior agent who as you mention insisted it had to be booked completely separately was nice enough to reassure me that since it was all KL/DL, I'd be completely protected in IRROPs and be able to check bags through as flyerCO mentions.

It's not all doom & gloom for DL awards. I definitely think the website itself is garbage (and getting worse) but this will be at least my third complex int'l award ticket where phone agents have been very useful in helping me sort out something that was completely impossible on the website.

stan1162

I recall seeing this question being asked, but I couldn't find it. DH ( cardholder) booked MEM-DTW-MEM for us ( me on a companion cert). Flight changed to MEM-DTW-ATL-MEM. I obviously want to change it back to the non-stop. DH, however has to be in ATL on the day we return. Just found this out. So either he goes all the way to MEM, just to get back on flight, or, If we decide to keep the new routing, and he jumps ship in ATL, will I have any problem carrying on to MEM??

Thanks!

RealHJ

Your experience is a ray of light on what otherwise does look like doom & gloom. Previously I also had similar experiences. But the last few times clearly what the agents are using is practically the web site and seem to have no access to anything less buggy. They can only pull things up exactly the same as on site (e.g. can't do connecting flights with additive fare if connection is less than 24 hours, just like on site multi city - then it simply won't show up for them no matter how they try to force it). I mean we all know that the front line phone agents use the booking system that is identical to web site and provides the same results and has the same numerous bugs. What has been more difficult (and no success for me, but I don't do HUACA...if I did, it may have worked) is to get through to someone who has access (or knowledge) to use something else other than the same output as web site, which we all know is crap.

I'll hold out some hope then that in the future connections that don't show up on the site at all (like CI at TPE, that's a good example) still can be booked by phone, vs. forcing to book a simple connection as two separate tickets, that is idiotic, and troublesome when it's different airlines in case of a missed connection that's technically a separate ticket, and the airline having no visibility into the connecting flight you are arriving on.

So there is some hope still, as your recent experience shows...but it's getting fainter by the day...or in other words, "the winter is coming."
(That is not just DL but in general w.r.t. award flights in all airlines' FFPs.)

gooselee

Just curious - you don't do HUCA but many of your posts reference things along the lines of finding an agent who knows what they're doing/is willing to do the work (not your exact words but along those lines).

If not HUCA, what is your method to find these agents? Do you literally call once to attempt a booking and if the first agent won't do it, give up on the trip or book on OAL?

Nothing against that method if it's the one you have chosen, it just seems like you're setting yourself up for lots of fails where success is still possible.

We should not HAVE to HUCA to get things to work, but IMO it's a relatively small inconvenience to get things to work out. I've never had to HUCA more than twice in my experiences with anything at DL (i.e., my problem is solved in three agents or less). This includes awards, RUC/GUC application, SDC funkiness, etc.