Free checked bag for others using different CC
 

I recently applied for the Delta Gold CC and plan to be using this to book some plane tickets for an upcoming trip. One of the benefits is having one free checked bag for up to 9 passengers. I'm reading through the fine print but don't see anywhere that mentions that it has to be paid for using my Delta Gold CC.

My question is if some of the tickets were paid with another person's credit card but I use my SkyMiles account # on all those reservations, will they still qualify? Does Delta allow the same account # on multiple reservations?

Thanks.

You don't need to pay for the tickets with the delta amex to get the free bags, the amex just has to be linked with your skymiles account. Your skymiles account is yours and yours only, though, it can't be used for anybody else. Everybody has to be booked together for them to get free bags.
If you're all booked seperately but are on the same flights, the ticketing agent might waive their baggage fees, but ymmv

So does that mean I have to book all the tickets at once on one card? We have two families going on this trip and they want to pay with their CC. I'm not even sure if we can book these all together. We have 10 people going and I think travel sites like Expedia has a limit.

If booked on two PNRs, just call/tweet and ask an agent to link the PNRs. It won't help with anything automated, but when a live agent pulls up either reservation they will see that they are linked. In the past this has helped me give family members on a different PNR access to my medallion baggage privileges (free + SP tags) and selection of preferred seats.

10 people on the same flight may be worth a call to the group sales desk. They may be able to include bags for the group or maybe offer a few percent off the lowest fare.
https://www.delta.com/planning_reser...ales/index.jsp

A linked reservation is not the same thing as one reservation and there's no way to combine two separate reservations once booked. You may have gotten agents to overlook the rules in the past, but I certainly wouldn't count on this. Given that the OP apparently has no status, I would certainly not rely on the agents bending the rules for him. To be sure of the waiver, the tickets should all be booked on the same transaction on the same card so that they are on the same reservation. If the other members of party wish to book their own tickets, they should be informed that they should expect to pay luggage fees.

Don't the group discounts only apply to K+ fares? If LUT fares are available, they will most likely be cheaper.

That's possible I have never used them. If so, the OP would be better off booking LUT fares if they are available. In any case, it may be worth a call to find out.

Will linking PNR's also work with UG requests? I have travel booked with a companion in late august but DL agent booked us on seperate PNR's... ugh!

Definitely.

I do that to request my wife's upgrades when we pay for her ticket but I am on an award ticket (since paid and award have to be booked separately). Then they will request her upgrades and seat her next to me in a preferred seat, and allow both of us to check 2 bags (plus priority tag her bags).

I prefer to do all of this via twitter rather than calling in, and of course you have to check in at the counter for the linked PNRs to mean anything.

Thanks for all the replies. Still picking up on the terms used here. Can someone tell me what the following abbreviations mean:

LUT
UG
PNR

I definitely don't have any status with Delta yet. Once my job requires more flying, I will start earning more miles with them. For now, I just want to get this started and since we will be flying Delta anyway it works out well.

I will give them a call to see if we can get some kind of discount for our group.

Thanks.

Ymmv on this too. My husband and I recently flew ATL-MAN; my ticket was paid and his was an award. I was able to get him an EC seat at no charge by calling in. I had the reservations linked in the hopes that he might be allowed to check two bags free, but no such luck. The phone agent told me that was up to the airport agents, and we didn't want to chance it. On the plus side, on the return flight the economy section filled up overnight, and we got an op-up to Business. This certainly would not have happened for him (he has a Sky Miles #, but no status) if the reservations had not been linked.

LUT are fare classes. They are the lowest (usually means cheapest) fares available. HKQ are the next highest in the list followed by YBM.

UG is upgrade

PNR stands for passenger name record. It is another term for confirmation number.

Thanks. I noticed a lot of similar terms used for the other Delta fare classes. I guess I'll pick those up once I start to fly more often.

Strictly speaking, PNR is the record itself. The 6 character "number" is a Record Locator.