What fare class availability is needed when a weather waiver is in place?
 

Booked a trip to SEA on Friday in T. STL is under a weather waiver for today and tomorrow. Trying to change the ticket to Saturday.

The website lets me pick new flights, says there is no add-collect but when I click "Purchase" I get a "The flights you selected are no longer available" message.

Do the rebooked flights need to be in the same class purchased (T) or can it be any coach class? All flights Friday & Saturday don't have T class availability which makes the weather waiver pointless if it must be booked into the same class purchased.

Of course, this could just be a website error...

Can anyone let me know the official policy?

Thanks,
Greg

Call them, don't waste time or your flights won't be available

Website error. No matter which coach fare class you originally booked into, all you need to change flights during a weather waiver is Y availability.

First check the DL website. The rules regarding weather waivers can vary from one weather event to another and even depend on the specific airports. Then, knowing the rules, use EF or try dummy bookings to find flights you want. THEN call DL armed with this information and ask them to make the changes you want according to the waiver.

For this weather waiver, they are doing same "cabin" which means
if you are in any coach level, you can change to the lowest inventory coach inventory available. If you are booked in any first class, you can use any first class inventory available. I just changed a reservation that I had used
miles to upgrade to first and there was only two F seats available. They converted the two F seats to G and got us on the flight.

If you book due to weather waiver, does the fare class for the rebooking change to Y if that's all that's available? Or do you keep your initial booking fare class?

Depends how the agent processes it. The proper procedure is to rebook in the same class. They can do this even if there is no longer availability in that class. Some rebook in Y due to laziness or poor training. Nonetheless, your paid fare basis is still retained in almost all cases, so even if you do get rebooked into Y, you don't get the RDM/MQM bonuses.

Looks like it rebooked into Y. I don't really care so much about the bonus MQM, but I do like getting the bump in the upgrade list!!