xliioper

No. FlyNow did not require original fare bucket availability --

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/8486866-post6.html

However, the FlyNow option was electronic only (via kiosks or the Internet), and was not something that agents apparently had visibility into. This caused a fair amount of confusion for people who tried to use FlyNow via an agent. There were people who had changes done by agents, but strictly speaking, I don't believe those would have been considered a FlyNow change.

suvayanr

thank god my last MR for the year is done on the 13th.

selkie42

I'm quite confident that this is the issue.

As someone who never knows their schedule and flies NYC-ORD several times a month, my whole reason for maintaining GM is the ability to book the last flight of the day, SDC when my schedule firms up, and not have to show up to the airport and hope for a standby seat. That, in combination with DLs hourly shuttle flights, made paying the extra $40-50 v. AA/others worthwhile, even in light of the skypesos situation.

Might be a good for business, but my 2 cents: In my market, if I'm back to standby, I'm probably back to AA gold/plat even with the paid upgrades.

hnewman

IN for $100

lamont2718

You could SDC as early as 12am that day. No reason to wait until 3am.

If you don't make the SDC request before your original flight's departure time, it sounds like you will be SOL.

Even if there are no alternate flights within 3 hours of your original departure, you will be able to SDC to any other flight (subject to fare availability) by paying $50.

indufan

OK, Delta, about 12 minutes ago I posted this in our private forum on Facebook for my department. We are small but we are traveling machines. There are 16 of us. 14 fly on Delta exclusively. 12 of them are DMs. Well, there were 12, you lost a DM's loyalty last week over a myriad of reasons. Two of them are PM.

Hell, they barely understood the last SDC process and I explained it many, many times. But, I have still been there answering those questions for them over and over.

I am not going to go through and quote this entire mess of a thread but a couple of observations.

Just because a fare bucket isn't available for SALE, doesn't mean that the fare bucket is empty. The T bucket can, and many times does have availability on the day of departure...just no one can buy it because they aren't meeting advance purchase restrictions. So, without looking directly at the fare buckets, you can't just check by attempting to purchase a short notice ticket.

Why is Delta changing this? I think that people are deliberately avoiding the higher fares....booking the cheaper flight and intending to SDC it all along. And, for ....!s sake you better grandfather this stuff. I didn't EXACTLY that on a vacation trip in about a month. I DON'T DO REDEYES. I booked one because it was the cheapest by far. It is before midnight out of LAX and I very well intend to change it. If you don't let me change it for free, expect me to make a ruckus about it.

This airline is REALLY irking me the wrong way these days. This has been from one of your biggest freaking cheerleaders here and elsewhere. I have about had it. I get that there isn't much competition. I can't stand ORD and therefore I can't stand UA and AA. I would hate to have to switch. Or, another alternative, is just to say screw it all and do a different kind of job. I know you think that they will just hire some other dweeb to replace me. I am not sure they will. If the airline industry as a whole starts treating people like crap more and more often (after all the "public" thinks that is the norm) the companies will adjust and change. Sure, you don't ever loose it all but it hardly helps you build the market instead of just trying to build the market share.

Traveller

wow, I consider you to be one of Delta's biggest cheerleaders.... if you are disillusioned, Atlanta, we have a problem!

suvayanr

SDC was Delta's key benefit. If this becomes the case, I'm going with US/AA since now with the PHL hub, AA is going to be great in the Atlantic state corridor.

agarc

I'm okay with this change (and I'm not a Delta fan boy by any means).

* If people are really buying an A fare for SFO-SLC-JFK and using SDC to switch to the SFO-JFK in BE, it makes sense for DL to prevent this from continuing. Sucks for those who were getting away with it, but that sounds like gaming the system.

* I very rarely change my flight proactively...on the rare occasion where I did standby, it worked (although with crummy seats). I guess I don't see the big difference from SDC and standing by... even if one is an immediate guarantee, standby has always been sufficient. YMMV.

* UA had a similar issue where last minute frequent fliers were unable to get E+ seats and complimentary upgrades, even though their fares were considered high-yield. If Delta is doing this to protect their high-yield, last-minute fliers, it makes sense to prioritize their flexibility over everyone else.

Either way, the big airlines are making a collective move with their frequent flier programs. Loyalty is not driven by how much you fly, but how much you spend. And it doesn't matter how much you have spent/flown in the past, it's all about what you're doing for the airline now.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Has a formal announcement even been made yet though?

underpressure

and guess what? For every one that speaks up, nine more just quietly walk away...@:-)

indufan

Delta doesn't know that they have even lost my one coworker yet. He didn't complain to anyone other than us. But he booked his first UA flight EVER yesterday.

MSPeconomist

Same fare class means no chance of switching from domestic FC to flights marketed as domestic business class or vice versa. For some routes between hubs or between a hub and a major business destination, if about half offer domestic FC and the other half domestic business class, this precludes people from switching between these two categories of domestic flights and could cut the number of flights to which one could change roughly in half.

Tomphot

This one really stinks!
I have never gamed the system, only used SDC to get home a little earlier, often given up a FC seat to sit in coach.

The Only reason I just gifted my wife GM was because of SDC opportunities on her 6 trips to NYC a year. Guess I just got screwed on that decision - thanks for the advanced notice.

AdamDunn32

This is correct - if the fare rules no longer dictate the fare can be sold or the fare has been "turned off" by Delta, Expert Flyer will show T0, even though internally Delta has 15 seats that bucket to this fare class.

My wife is DM and I relayed her the news - like a few others in this thread, she got it. They are preventing people from gaming the system. If people were finding ways to take advantage of your services for less, no matter the business, you would change it. While those of us who fly on cheap fares will complain, this is now a huge advantage to the higher fare classes and those who actually buy flexible fares.

jrl767

and yet another late-breaking realization

a few years ago when I was working Air Force policy for engineering & technical management, many conversations contained the phrase "peeling back the onion" when talking about impacts and consequences of contemplated changes ... my usual rejoinder was something like "yeah, and for every layer you cry some more"