SDC rules change April 16; Increased restrictions incl same fare bucket availability
Mar 28, 2013, 3:31 pm
#91
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: New York, NY
Programs: Delta PM, Hyatt Plat, SPG Gold
Posts: 74
I'll tell you something I think they should have done away with was I was once able to switch to a first out morning flight and was then offered a VDB to go back 3 hours when in reality I would have taken any of the 3 flights going out that day that were earlier.
Mar 28, 2013, 3:36 pm
#92
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: ATL
Programs: DL - DM, Charter KM; Marriott Ambassador
Posts: 1,354
Mar 28, 2013, 3:53 pm
#93
Suspended
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 173
This pretty much ends SDC the only benefit I truly appreciate. I think if enough of us complain about this they would consider reversing the policy. Should we take our complaints to social media ?
Mar 28, 2013, 3:57 pm
#94
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Join Date: May 2001
Location: Southern California/In the air
Programs: DL
Posts: 10,382
And thus book the flight they think they'll need or actually need. Like I said in the above post, it's no secret, as evidenced here on FT, that people will book a later flight that's significantly cheaper, knowing there's a good chance they can SDC to the earlier, more expensive flight on the day of, and save a chunk of change.
I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the new rules (if they're true), but merely that if that's part of the logic, then I understand the move by DL. What I think you're seeing through these "enhancements" (such as MQD and the SDC changes) is DL amending the perks so that they're used in the way they were designed to be used and remove the ways that they're taken advantage of.
I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the new rules (if they're true), but merely that if that's part of the logic, then I understand the move by DL. What I think you're seeing through these "enhancements" (such as MQD and the SDC changes) is DL amending the perks so that they're used in the way they were designed to be used and remove the ways that they're taken advantage of.
And from the perspective of someone who travels on business, the inherent tendency is to book later flights because of the uncertainty associated with when one's work will be done. If you wrap up a meeting early, there is nothing more frustrating than having hours to kill until your scheduled flight leaves -- particularly when the weather starts to look iffy. And sometimes things crop up that necessitate an earlier than anticipated departure. But having to switch to a later flight can be very costly if you book too early a departure.
In the end, I suspect this is the first step back toward a system where the only fares that offer any flexibility at all are the higher fare classes. That would seem to be the natural outcome for an industry that has morphed into an oligopoly and the direction in which things seem to be headed. In that respect, this is an industry-wide issue rather than one specific to Delta.
Mar 28, 2013, 3:58 pm
#95
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Everywhere....
Programs: Delta DM
Posts: 463
SDC rules change April 16; Increased restrictions incl same fare bucket availability
Just talked to a GA. Matching Fare Bucket is confirmed.
Mar 28, 2013, 3:59 pm
#96
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Mar 28, 2013, 4:03 pm
#97
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Join Date: Nov 2004
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Posts: 10,196
Sadly, I doubt it. DL.com says:
This looks pretty cut-and-dry - you might find a sympathetic agent, but the stated policy gives Delta an easy out.
This looks pretty cut-and-dry - you might find a sympathetic agent, but the stated policy gives Delta an easy out.
NOTE - TEXT BELOW NOT VALIDATED FOR AUTOPRICING.
STANDBY IS NOT PERMITTED.
SAME DAY CONFIRM/SDC -
PASSENGERS HOLDING CONFIRMED RESERVATIONS AND
TICKETS MAY CONFIRM EARLIER/LATER SAME DAY
FLIGHTS BETWEEN SAME ORIGIN/DESTINATION/
STOPOVER POINTS FOR A NON-REFUNDABLE FEE OF
USD 50.00 PLUS ANY DIFFERENCE IN GOVERNMENT
IMPOSED ITINERARY BASED FEES. NEW ITINERARY
MAY NOT BE CONFIRMED MORE THAN 3 HOURS PRIOR
TO DEPARTURE TIME OF NEW OUTBOUND FLIGHT. THE
NEW ITINERARY MUST BE VALID FOR THE ORIGINAL
FARE PURCHASED. EXCEPTION- IF ORIGINAL FARE
PURCHASED REQUIRES TRAVEL VIA A CONNECTING
POINT - TRAVEL VIA NON STOP SERVICE IS
PERMITTED FOR NO DIFFERENCE IN FARE.
SEE PENALTIES/VOLUNTARY CHANGES FOR COMPLETE
RULES AND RESTRICTIONS.
STANDBY IS NOT PERMITTED.
SAME DAY CONFIRM/SDC -
PASSENGERS HOLDING CONFIRMED RESERVATIONS AND
TICKETS MAY CONFIRM EARLIER/LATER SAME DAY
FLIGHTS BETWEEN SAME ORIGIN/DESTINATION/
STOPOVER POINTS FOR A NON-REFUNDABLE FEE OF
USD 50.00 PLUS ANY DIFFERENCE IN GOVERNMENT
IMPOSED ITINERARY BASED FEES. NEW ITINERARY
MAY NOT BE CONFIRMED MORE THAN 3 HOURS PRIOR
TO DEPARTURE TIME OF NEW OUTBOUND FLIGHT. THE
NEW ITINERARY MUST BE VALID FOR THE ORIGINAL
FARE PURCHASED. EXCEPTION- IF ORIGINAL FARE
PURCHASED REQUIRES TRAVEL VIA A CONNECTING
POINT - TRAVEL VIA NON STOP SERVICE IS
PERMITTED FOR NO DIFFERENCE IN FARE.
SEE PENALTIES/VOLUNTARY CHANGES FOR COMPLETE
RULES AND RESTRICTIONS.
Mar 28, 2013, 4:06 pm
#98
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: ATL
Programs: Bonvoy Ambassador, Hyatt Globalist, Hilton Gold, AA EXP, UA Silver, former DL DM
Posts: 2,001
Keep in mind that the new standby experience will likely come with more certainty than we are used to: Medallions today go on standby only if the flight in question is so full that they cannot SDC onto it -- but that will not be the case after April.
Mar 28, 2013, 4:12 pm
#99
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: CT
Programs: DL DM 2MM, MR LTT, Hilton D, Hertz PC. National Emerald Exec, UA Silver(thanks to Marriott)
Posts: 2,026
Mar 28, 2013, 4:16 pm
#100
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: TPA & ATL
Programs: DL PM, USLess air & HHoners
Posts: 1,237
Assuming that this account is more or less accurate, this really sounds like a scheme thought up by back offiice beancounters who don't deal with the operational realities of running an airline.
Overall, what I'd expect this to do in the aggregate is to lock people more into the flights onto which they were already booked. I'm not sure that's a good outcome when capacity is restricted as much as it is.
Any time you can get a person off a later flight and on to an earlier one, you're maximizing the capacity of the system for a given day. Given the lack of excess capacity in the system generally, that should always be a win-win for both the airline and the customer. Moving a customer to an earlier flight costs essentially nothing; when a seat on an early flight goes out empty, it's gone for the day. Ideally, you'd want the latest flights to be the emptiest -- it's your last chance to get people where they're going without an overnight delay -- and a backlog that then spills over into the next day.
Unless there's transparency in availability and your place in the standby list, paying $50 to standby is buying a pig in a poke, which essentially makes it unviable for infrequent leisure travelers and FOs. On a lot of routes, you'd achieve an equal result by going into the men's room, pulling out $50 and flushing it down the toilet, especially given the inability to move from a nonstop to a connection and vice versa. This is really the case on hub to hub flights, which tend to run full.
All in all, from what I can tell, this seems like one of those brilliant MBA generated ideas that sounds good in theory (where the operative objective is extracting as much cash from the customer as possible) but downright awful operationally. I can see this backfiring as the number of VDBs and IDBs increase, because what you've done is remove flexibility to move people around by trying to pass along as a cost to passengers something that is actually desirable from an operations perspective. A $50 fee is not insignificant, especially when, in some cases, it's money that is going to be thrown away.
Overall, what I'd expect this to do in the aggregate is to lock people more into the flights onto which they were already booked. I'm not sure that's a good outcome when capacity is restricted as much as it is.
Any time you can get a person off a later flight and on to an earlier one, you're maximizing the capacity of the system for a given day. Given the lack of excess capacity in the system generally, that should always be a win-win for both the airline and the customer. Moving a customer to an earlier flight costs essentially nothing; when a seat on an early flight goes out empty, it's gone for the day. Ideally, you'd want the latest flights to be the emptiest -- it's your last chance to get people where they're going without an overnight delay -- and a backlog that then spills over into the next day.
Unless there's transparency in availability and your place in the standby list, paying $50 to standby is buying a pig in a poke, which essentially makes it unviable for infrequent leisure travelers and FOs. On a lot of routes, you'd achieve an equal result by going into the men's room, pulling out $50 and flushing it down the toilet, especially given the inability to move from a nonstop to a connection and vice versa. This is really the case on hub to hub flights, which tend to run full.
All in all, from what I can tell, this seems like one of those brilliant MBA generated ideas that sounds good in theory (where the operative objective is extracting as much cash from the customer as possible) but downright awful operationally. I can see this backfiring as the number of VDBs and IDBs increase, because what you've done is remove flexibility to move people around by trying to pass along as a cost to passengers something that is actually desirable from an operations perspective. A $50 fee is not insignificant, especially when, in some cases, it's money that is going to be thrown away.
Someone in the other thread also made the good point that right now, the availability of free SDC means that often pax are balancing out overbooked flights on their own, especially on elite-heavy routes, since they are taking seats that are currently unsold.
If SDC slows down/stops, and those seats remain unsold and unfilled, that increases the potential for the original flights being oversold and thus the potential for VDB/IDB.
If SDC slows down/stops, and those seats remain unsold and unfilled, that increases the potential for the original flights being oversold and thus the potential for VDB/IDB.
At the end of the day, this would greatly reduce my motivation to make the push for GM this year. Seems like SDC would be mostly impossibly on my usual KLUT(VX) fares.
Last edited by localady; Mar 28, 2013 at 4:49 pm
Mar 28, 2013, 4:23 pm
#101
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Paris
Programs: AF, UA, BA/IB, VS, Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold
Posts: 278
i love delta, and quite honestly think they have the best product out there of the domestic majors.
however, with all of the devaluations, it makes me wonder what being a medallion is actually worth (outside of high upgrade percentages).
What are the SDC policies at the other major airlines (AA/UA)? is it all pretty much the same with only standby being free?
however, with all of the devaluations, it makes me wonder what being a medallion is actually worth (outside of high upgrade percentages).
What are the SDC policies at the other major airlines (AA/UA)? is it all pretty much the same with only standby being free?
Mar 28, 2013, 4:40 pm
#102
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: LAS
Programs: DL PM, UA PS, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott Titanium
Posts: 4,904
There was a cheap SFO-EWR rt P fare a while back that many DMs jumped on since you could SDC to JFK nonstop. Can't anymore since same fare bucket isn't available.
Mar 28, 2013, 4:43 pm
#103
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: LAS
Programs: DL PM, UA PS, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott Titanium
Posts: 4,904
i love delta, and quite honestly think they have the best product out there of the domestic majors.
however, with all of the devaluations, it makes me wonder what being a medallion is actually worth (outside of high upgrade percentages).
What are the SDC policies at the other major airlines (AA/UA)? is it all pretty much the same with only standby being free?
however, with all of the devaluations, it makes me wonder what being a medallion is actually worth (outside of high upgrade percentages).
What are the SDC policies at the other major airlines (AA/UA)? is it all pretty much the same with only standby being free?
The new Delta system will be like UA. 24 hour SDC but same fare bucket required.
Mar 28, 2013, 4:49 pm
#104
Join Date: Oct 2007
Programs: Now just a lowly DL PM/1MM. This industry needs some competition. It's just not enjoyable anymore.
Posts: 3,543
Still waiting for the usual suspects to chime in and defend this......