thepointsguy

Trying to book an award ATL-AMS on Oct 19, 2 people in business class
Airfrance.us shows KLM flight 622 with availability in Classic (low level, 50k mile one way business class) awards. KVS also confirms this. However, when I call the Diamond line (several times now), Delta only shows coach availability.

This is extremely frustrating and has never happened to me before. Classic Flying Blue awards have always been bookable with Delta miles,

Has something changed? I don´t want to overreact, but is Delta starting their own version of Starnet blocking?

standardgirl

I had similar issue today - saw Classic FlyingBlue award available on both AF and KLM website, but Delta told me there's no availability. Delta CSR even told me that DL has different award inventory than KLM which I am still questioning...

itsaboutthejourney

God I hope not, they don't need another WSJ article bemoaning the lack of award avail. (That article was mentioned a good 20x by execs at the ATL DO, so I know it touched a nerve).

Denolloyd

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I had this issue last month. The agent told me she did not see any open seats on KL. I called back 10 min later, spoke with another agent and was able to book my tickets. Not sure whats going on in your case but I'd call again.

redtailshark

This behavior really frustrates people - and with good reason.

DL has no published excuse for failing to honor available seats. But their duplicity been going on for some time now.

There's no acceptable reason to promote this behavior on the part of CSRs, to reward them for lying to customers. There's no acceptable reason for management to promote this behavior from CSRs by misaligned metrics - such as, number of SM redeemed per agent.day.

When enough people have been through this, and enough publicity has been raised and formal complaints have been filed, DL will be compelled to change its ways. It doesn't have to be best in class, it just has to honor its own published T&C. Which don't include a version of SkyTeam Award blocking, yet.

If DL don't want much worse WSJ headlines that reflect customers being dealt with dishonestly, then they need to take action on this. They are responsible, not the customers, nor even the CSRs individually.

Vuelos

I think you need to give a pep talk to your employees!

StayingHomeIsBetter

Oh, yes they do. They need about one article per week until integrity is returned to the program.

mnredfox

I had the issue last month too. EF showed partner availability, calling DL to book did not. Called back the next day and DL could book it. Why this happens I have no idea, all I know is it is really annoying and yet another poor feature of the DL FFP. Another thing, why is it on partners EF can find availability better and faster than DL agents, yet I have to book with a DL agent?

Vuelos

This isn't an issue with the FFP at all. It's an issue with the AF computer systems. The DL system & the AF system don't always play nice (especially given that AF is now electronic ticket only) and, IIRC, AF is changing their GDS booking engine soon... that'll cause more issues.

holtju2

I am pretty sure that if the agent actually tries to sell the flight that has award space available, although not "visible" when doing a search, it will come back as HK (confirmed).

Vuelos

Agreed. That's my experience but you have to cajole them a little...

fti

That is exactly what has happened with me even with DL domestic award seats. I find availability online, the agent says, "not available." She actually tried to sell it and it came back as HK. I asked her what she did and then she explained it.

So now, whenever I have a similar problem I politely ask them to please try and sell the specific flight anyway and see what happens. Has worked more than once.

goodandclassy

do you get availability info with KVS for DL domestic flights?
I looove expertflyer's 'o' alerts for AF

GUWonder

Requesting a "long sell" or something close to that has worked in some instances of dealing with such blocking when it comes to UA. So same thing here, too?

rylan

Its because the systems don't update from AF to DL inventory in real time... so while AF may open some seats, it will take a bit for the DL system to either be told and/or recognize and update its own inventory to reflect the AF one. Good to know that the booking will get confirmed if its there and the DL system can't "see" it at first.