GRALISTAIR

Said in jest/tongue in cheek - but so much truth to it!

pstation

ha, on the delta non-rev forum it seems like every other day there's some sort of accusation or shena or another going on

davetravels

HA! Very funny!!!

On a side note, the nonrevs hava forum??? I think you're opening a HUGE can of worms here!

GRALISTAIR

Yes can you just imagine the gloating and points scoring - yeah I got a DIAMOND kicked into Economy today .

Or .....ing at a fair GA - Doesn't she know who I am - I am a senior DL FA - and she UGd a silver rather than Shena me.

davetravels

She's probably a former NW'er!

krlcomm

The sad part? You can pay a damn fortune for an M fare in the vain hope that DL will let you use one of their mostly worthless SWUs and then get still get stuck in the exact same coach seat you could have paid thousands less for... great article: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/pearls...hin-and-hopin/

HongKonger

Anyone who wait lists a SWU internationally, please send me the extra few grand rather than setting it on fire as you are currently doing. Thanks in advance.

Sez_Who

Thanks for the link, great blog. ^

The humor also was funny but for the fact that this is what we really have to deal with. Painful times in FF land.

WillTvl4Food

Shena by non-revs to non-revs happens all the time...probably way more often than anyone wants to admit. That's why if you're in the gate area and you see someone staring at their phone/tablet/laptop, then at the gate monitor, and then back at their electronic device in a continuous loop, they're probably a non-rev watching the standby list to make sure Shena DOESN'T happen.

As a matter of fact, it happened to my partner last week, and it ended up costing him a seat on the flight. He still got home by connecting through DTW with an empty seat next to him on both flights versus a cramped middle seat on the non-stop he was trying to get on, but it cost him a few hours in the process.

And no...non-revs don't have priority over any revenue passenger for anything by policy. However, mistakes are sometimes made, and sometimes people do things they shouldn't, but that should be an extreme exception to the normal day to day operations of the airline. As for me, I'm just happy to get onboard and get to my destination in one piece. If there just happen to be leftover seats up front after all upgrades (complimentary domestic, SWU, whatever) have been processed, then I consider it a very good day.

HongKonger

+1

Sez_Who

You fly intl and say you use M fares w/SWU. Well, at least up until now when suddenly there is no intl UG inventory. If you won't play the waitlist game, will you be booking EC instead or something else?

roknroll

Saw this happen on my last trip, flying JFK-ROC on a packed CRJ. The flight was full and 5 mins before our scheduled departure time, and a man hurries on board only to be told that there's 50 passengers and no seats. Then they realize he is a non-rev and tell him tough luck, but I guess he was a non-rev with seniority and there was another non-rev on the plane. So the FA tried to do the right thing, and gets on the PA to ask the non-rev currently on the plane to hit their call button... which was followed by silence. After another announcement, the FA tried to hop on her phone to check the web to find out what seat the non-rev was in, but by that time we were 1 min from pushback and she had to just shut the door and move on.

I'm curious, though, if they tried to follow up after landing or if the non-rev who didn't make it on the flight did any follow up.

HongKonger

Good question and I'm not sure of the answer yet. My dates and routes are usually flexible so I can set lots of EF alerts and wait until perhaps 2 weeks before the trip. If UG inventory doesn't open between NRT both to and from some city with flat beds (at a minimum--I will take EC on domestic and HKG-NRT and vv nearly always clear), I'll buy the cheapest economy ticket I can get (almost always it is on DL or UA) and either sit in EC free if on DL or pay for UA's E+ (and of course factor that into my cost calculation).

If the lack of advance UG inventory persists I'll just re-establish the status I used to have with UA and play their day-of-flight crapshoot from much cheaper fares. May not always work but roughly equal chances for much less money is the obvious choice, plus UA has 2 direct HKG-USA flights. If I do make that choice I'll inform DL why but I'm sure DL won't miss me a bit. They don't appreciate premium fare flyers so why pay premium fares? C'est la airline business.

Sez_Who

I hear ya about UA. Wife is a UA 1K, booked a K fare and used her GPU's to send daughter on a flt to HKG last month. No problem.

OTOH, did the same thing for son to meet me at HKG in a few weeks. His UG's have yet to clear. Looks like this is hit-or-miss.

BTW, my DL M fares were not all available at time of booking but all cleared well before the flts. Nevertheless, probably won't do this again. Taking away the M fare bonus plus the lack of UG inventory at booking makes DL more than twice as expensive as UA with no apparent better chance for UG.

Liked the suggestion in the article quoted above... Allow PM/DL to book into EC, then charge the difference only if the UG clears. Still expensive but I could live with that.

Starblazer

not excusing any shena, but you also have to remember once you're out of the states, it's the home carriers system Deltamatic talks to.. for example in AMS you deal with KLMs Amadeus, so you get to deal with technology differences on top of regular delta issues.

As a non-rev, it slightly sucks because Amadeus doesn't update Travelnet... so you don't know where you are unless you flag down a terminal-on-wheels and ask nicely.