Cdaazn

Haven't really found an answer here or elsewhere but with the companion passes being so limited for flights. Is it possible to book a companion pass round trip and then book a separate one way return flight on the same day of scheduled companion return day, to be able to fly return trip at a preferred time. Essentially would fly outbound flight and skip companion return, but fly with a purchased one way ticket for return.

Basically the only current available return ticket is a 530 am flight and looking to find return trip time that better suites my needs. And booking a separate one way return actually ends up being cheaper then booking the round trip without companion pass.

mykidissmarterthanyou

I would LOVE to use one if you are giving them away for a November trip. Please message me if it's still available, I'll send you a quick message as well. Thanks.

Adelphos

Would a same day change be an option for the return?

To answer the question, if both passengers travel on outbound, not sure why what you propose wouldn’t work

Cdaazn

​​​​​​For companion pass connected to amex platinum, does same day change allow one to select any flight that day or is it still limited to the certain class fare? I think right now the biggest issue seems to be available flights associated with the companion pass even when trying to change the return flight after using the companion pass.

findark

Standard SDC rules apply. If your companion booking is in Economy, then you need same fare class availability to SDC.

You can't hold multiple overlapping reservations at the same time; they will get canceled.

AALoyalNYC

I'm finding inventory is practically non-existent for companion certificates. Every year I've succesfully used one JFK-SLC the week prior to President's weekend (the non-holiday week). Flights are wide open, barely any seats booked, but zero availability for companion cert (Reserve card).

What gives? Very annoying....

bgriff

It may or may not be a good thing to do, but I have never found that Delta has any ability to auto-cancel overlapping bookings, unless it is very new. I have held overlapping, conflicting, confusing, double-counting and all nature of other clearly unexecutable bookings for decent amounts of time numerous times and have never had any issues. I know United is much more aggressive about this, but they also have much better IT than Delta does.


I have found that Companion Cert availability is often very limited booking far in advance, but can become more widely available within a few months of departure. This is probably related to the fact that airlines don't actively revenue-manage flights until ~3-6 months out depending on the market, and often just put medium-high fare placeholders out before that. So it's possible something could open up between now and then ... worth continuing to check, anyway.

xliioper

Weekends during Ski season are going to be high demand on this route even when it's not President's Day weekend. Airlines don't allocate a fixed number of seats per fare bucket. Not at all unusual for lower fare buckets to be zeroed out on high-demand flights even with no one booked on flights. Not clear if you are looking for coach or FC. While there is no availability for a Sunday return, there is for Monday red-eye flight. Also availability on Tuesday Feb 14th 5:35PM daytime flight.

krazykanuck

I was pretty surprised that I finally found a use for my DL Plat companion cert that was issued in April 2020 and subsequently extended again and again. I had a long planned trip to Arches National Park for the end of the month and finding a +1 was more difficult than I thought. But finally did and DL still had U and V fares, so $400 rt for two IAH-SLC (hence why I didn't want to pay that for just me, expensive short haul fare). F is also empty on both flights as of now, so thinking our upgrade odds are pretty good.

hurnik

PM sent (sorry for late response, I didn't get the notification until late last night.)

Diannap

Trying to book a companion ticket MSP-MCO, and Expert Flyer is showing 4 seats in I both ways, but Delta is telling me there are no seats in I, and thus its not available to book. Website booking says "Not Offered."

Is the EF availability not actually real time? Or is there some other rule I'm missing?

Zorak

Inventory is only half the puzzle -- there also needs to be a fare filed that matches the inventory bucket. It's not unusual, especially close to flight date (not applicable for your case, but as general info) for there to be inventory in lower buckets but the related fares have advance purchase requirements etc. In your case DL only seems to be selling D fares on the return, which is not surprising for a heavy leisure destination on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Diannap

Annoying, but that makes sense. Thanks!

findark

I fares require a minimum of both I space and Q space (differential pricing).

No flight MCO-MSP has both I and Q (DL481 is I4 Y9 H8 Q0), so it will price in D.

Diannap

Super helpful. Thanks!