playsccr

I was on a flight from ATL to STT. The equipment got changed out and I got bumped from 1st class to row 30.

the people at the airport were rude; didnt offer any compensation and said take the seat or dont go to STT.


what should I do? Who should I contact? What should I be asking for?

This was a seat I paid for and not an upgrade.

rylan

What type of plane were you supposed to be on and what did it get swapped to?

Since this is a paid ticket, they should be bumping other pax who are on upgrades or awards first. Do you have any status with Delta? I recommend going to a service recovery desk in ATL or calling the medallion line if you have status and explain what happened.

You are absolutely due compensation. I'd be pushing for the difference in fare between your F seat for the segment and the lowest coach fare available when you booked... also miles for the inconvenience of being put in a crap seat from F.

MSPeconomist

Despite what some airline employees may try to tell you when it's convenient for them, award tickets are paid (albeit in miles rather than with money) and should not be automatic first candidates for downgrading.

OP is indeed due more than the difference in miles between FC and coach. A FC award ticket is not an option for the airline to seat one in FC or not as they please on the day of departure. If OP has wanted to sit in coach, he/she would have purchased a coach (award) ticket for less.

CarmenOM

The OP didn't say s/he was on an award ticket.

javabytes

MSPEconomist was responding to rylan, who suggested pax who are on upgrades or award tickets should be bumped first. I wouldn't put the two on the same level either - complimentary upgrades should be the first to go. Then move on to people who actually paid, whether cash or miles for the whole ticket or for a mileage upgrade.

rylan

I agree award tickets shouldn't be the first candidate for downgrading... complimentary upgrades should be. However, the agent should've made all attempts to accommodate the op on the flight or an alternate if there was a later flight with availability in F since there are multiple flights per day to STT this time of year. It sounds like that did not happen.

FlyingUnderTheRadar

As you paid for the seat and you were down graded you should get the difference between the cost of the FC seat and coach seat. Whether this is in miles or money. If money I would expect a refund not a credit.

Regarding the rudeness I would address that separately. I would also address that the GA did not appear to make any efforts to reseat anyone in FC that might have been given a complimentary FC upgrade.

CALlegacy

"UP" fare that you think is F but is really Y with an instant upgrade? If so, this is a well known and discussed gotcha that is also one of the sleazier marketing tactics used all too often. If this is indeed such a fare DL gave the ticket holder exactly what was purchased when plane changes happened. An alternative should have been to offer an F seat on another flight if available or possibly not fly and refund the ticket. Both of those options would have been "not go to STL (on that plane)." There was no excuse for rudeness and lack of explanation.

rylan

Incorrect. OP purchased (presumably with cash or miles) a seat in F. If it was an UP fare, there are also different types for ATL-STT. In all cases that UP fare costs a premium over the base fare economy seat, so you do pay more to sit up front. It doesn't mean you buy the cheapest economy fare and magically get a ride in F.

CalVol

You should get a refund....IMO it ought to be from the lowest available fare at time of ticketing...probably won't get that.

Hopefully, you got the name of the agent who was rude and can relay that info, as well. If, indeed, they were rude, they need a bit of re-training.

At the very least, they will throw a few miles your way.

exwannabe

OP is certainly due a refund, even if on an UP fare.

It is also reasonable for DL to toss in a few token miles as compensation for the involuntary downgrade.

Considering that many people consider unilaterally ending a conversation to be rude, it is hard to know what this aspect of the issue really means.If DL complaints are like what we hear on this board, about 80% of such will have this as a tag line. I would suspect DL ignore it unless specifics are involved.

davetravels

The OP should certainly get a complete & total refund, even if they DID take the flight to STL!!!

deltadiva

The destination was STT (St. Thomas) not STL (St. Louis)!

stlBased

In my experience, ATL -> STT is served pretty much exclusively by a nice domestically-configured 752. F has the full A/V suite etc, so like 5 or 6 rows of F.

I am curious as to what the equip switch could have been. The trick is that there are really only ever like 2 flights from ATL -> STT and sometimes 3 (on Saturdays).
rylan is right that there are multiple flights, but they are generally quite full and F is not a common complimentary u/g - seem to be usually bought straight F or award-bought well in advance (I've done this a few times).
Thus, if it was an equipment switch with a changed F config (TATL bird, perhaps, much fewer F seats), then you're basically out of luck for a given day.

Regardless, OP should have gotten a better explanation and should be able to get compensation, although if it's a SWU or something used to u/g to F, then perhaps they won't.

rylan

ATL-STT is usually a domestic 757 with 24F. Fairly often there is a 26F version with AVOD used on one of the daily turns during winter peak season. Weekends you may see a BE configured 752 that is normally used for the tcon route. JFK-STT uses that 16F BE version on weekends.

My only guess for a downgrade would be from the 26F to 24F version, but they'd only loose 2 seats so if the op was in row 7 he'd be booted. If the flight went fro a 757 to a 752 then that is losing 10 seats at which point its pretty ugly for re-accommodating.

Without any more into from the OP its just speculation.