Flying_Duck

I am a consultant juggling many travels for clients, some arranged by my client's travel office, some by myself. My clients are often competitors, and I try to be discreet and objective, adhering to my confidentiality agreement with each client to not cause trouble for myself and believe to date I have been successful doing so.

I was asked to do an on-visit consultation for client-1 who arranged for my ticket SLC-city A on D-D/M/Y

Subsequently, I was requested to do a consultation for another client-2 in City B during the same days I already had a ticket for city A, and not having enough information to know which one I would end up going to, I booked a refundable ticket SLC-city-B - returning to city-C where I already had another appointment.

Well this morning I received the following email from my client-1 contact stating:

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Hello Flying-Duck

We issued your electronic ticket for the on-site consultation at our facility in [City A] as agreed to be done on D-D/M/Y

Our travel department received a phone call from Delta this morning advising us that you had booked another reservation from D-D/M/Yfrom Salt Lake City to City-B and back to City-C (not SLC)

Delta informed us that the City-B ticket was just booked yesterday and you
do have today to void that ticket out without charge.

Please advise me you are still planning on coming to our facility in [City-A] from D-D/M/Y or not
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This is forcing me into an awkward discussion with client-1 I was not prepared to have now, as the "D-D/M/Y" are two months away. Further, by the nature of what I do, and the scarcity of facilities within our field, Client-1 now know exactly who I consult for ikn city-B, which I did not particularly wanted to share with them as they are competitors, creating a risk of me losing client-1

I feel Delta has grossly breached my confidentiality here causing potential damage to my livelihood by revealing a reservation I personally made, to a third party without my consent and without telling me.

I obviously never want to have this happen again (as I am sure some here as well would not) and I weighing where to go with this and to whom in Delta I should address my complaint - if anyone has ideas, I am all ears.

I am not looking for compensation at this point - but in theory I wonder whether I should consault a lawyer if I do lose client-1

It sort of reminds me of a promotion American Airlines did decades ago: They had a promotion where business travelers were given a free ticket for their spouse to bring on their trip, with some genius in marketing coming up with the brilliant idea of sending a "thankyou letter" to the spouse. You can guess what happened, many unhappy spouses and subsequent divorces later, (and I am sure flaming complaints to AA) AA had to quickly retreat from this idea!!
But seriously, I don't see the breach of confidentiality Delta committed on my behalf potentially not having similar potential dire consequences (as it may have for me)

UpgradeMe

Delta contacted the purchaser of the ticket. Not at all unreasonable under the circumstances.

If you want to ensure this does not occur in the future, purchase your own tickets.

davisew

So to confirm, Client 1 bought a ticket on DL in your name, then you booked a conflicting reservation to visit Client 2 (also on DL).

If DL has a duty to anyone, it's to Client 1 who is about to lose their money for the reservation that is about to be cancelled.

soxfanndc

OP, I can certainly understand your frustration. I def "get it" but I COMPLETELY agree with the previous reply. Delta contacted the purchaser of the ticket. While it may be ideal to contact the pax directly - and it may be desirable to do so too - but in this case DL has elected to contact the purchaser and I don't know if I see that as out of line.

I'll be interested to hear from the legal minds among us but it would seem to "non legal me" that wouldn't litigation have to prove specifically and DIRECTLY that Delta's actions results in your loss of client 1? Client would could simply say that it wasn't Delta's information that caused them to drop you, but instead it was knowledge that you were more closely aligned with a competitor then they wished you to be? I'm just saying that that logic/argument (that Delta's breach solely caused your release from contract) seems strained under the best of circumstances.

Others will chime in, I'm sure, so I've put some popcorn in the microwave....

rucksack

I agree that Delta should contact the purchaser of the ticket (as they did). The OP's potential claim hinges on whether Delta was authoised to release specific information regarding the itinerary the OP had purchased him/herself (e.g. destination and dates).

I think it's very likely that Delta includes some boilerplate language in their agreements that states that they have the right to share a passenger's information (e.g. itinerary) when it is necessary to doing business. Sharing information with TSA is one such example. Legally, I think Delta is probably fairly protected against the OP's claim.

Furthermore, I think the OP would have a very tough time proving that Delta divulging his/her itinerary led to damage to the client relationship. There are many reasons why someone might travel to a certain city.

javabytes

Delta prohibits speculative bookings or bookings of a fictitious nature. You had two conflicting itineraries booked, one of which you clearly cannot fly. It's not unreasonable to think Delta might contact the purchaser of one of the tickets to inquire, and in doing so, discuss the specifics of the conflict, nor can I even stretch my imagination to see how it could ever be a breach of confidentiality to do so.

HonoraryOrange

People here are right on one part, and very wrong on another.

Yes, Delta was smart to contact the purchaser about a potentially conflicting ticket.

However, giving them specific information about another ticket that does not belong to them is extremely bad form. They should not be sharing your personal travel data.

Delta should have simply said "There may be a conflict, we suggest you talk to the passenger involved."

thoiboi

I have nothing to input but my friend Michael Jackson and I have brought enough popcorn for all to share and will be following this to see the outcome

michael_v

Potential solution: buy tickets for client 2's visit on another airline.

dilbertsdaddy

They should have called OP, not purchaser IMO.

Not to change the subject, but I really hate it when clients insist on making arrangements. Always causes problems.

jadenus

Here's an example for the people that think Delta was fine with revealing the details of an unrelated booking.

Say you have a personal credit card and a company credit card both issued from the same bank. Somehow your company credit card is compromised. The bank calls the responsible party at your work saying they've detected some potentially fraudulent activity in Los Angeles.

"Oh, Fred's not in LA this week, you should cancel that card," the accountant says.

"Yes, we figured because we're also seeing donation charges to Planned Parenthood in Atlanta," the bank says.

"What? That's fraud too, he wouldn't charge that on his card," the accountant says.

"Oh, I mean on his personal card, so we know he's in Atlanta right now so he couldn't be in Los Angeles," the bank replies.

So now your organization knows that you have given money to Planned Parenthood, which may or may not have repercussions on you at work. I realize banking has stricter information regulation than travel, but the situation is the same. Delta noted unusual activity and shared more information than necessary to the responsible party.

And yet, in spite of it being "prohibited", upon detection Delta did not cancel either one of those and chose to advise an unrelated party that OP had until today to do a no-risk cancellation.

If it's not unreasonable to think Delta would contact the purchaser of one of the tickets, it's even less unreasonable to think that Delta would contact the purchaser of the most recent ticket who also happens to be the passenger on BOTH of the tickets. After all, that person probably has more information because he's the most recent purchaser and is the only one who has the option to cancel that second ticket.

javabytes

Apples and oranges. The credit card company is simply processing transactions. Delta is actually a party to the transaction. Further, in your example, there is a clear delineation between the personal and business credit cards, and it would certainly be a breach of confidentiality to discuss details of the personal account with a representative of the business, who is certainly unauthorized on the account. There is nothing inherently confidential about an airline booking, especially among the airline itself and the person booking travel on that airline or those reasonably believed to be their agent.

PowerFlyer

You don't have a privacy right in your travel. It's poor form to say where you were traveling on the conflicting ticket but its not unreasonable for DL to call the travel agent and ask "look this person bought a full refundable ticket on dates he has already booked travel...is he going?"

Have your secretary book your own travel...prevents this issues.

paterwdb

I think when you hand over travel arrangements to someone else, you lose a right to hold on to privacy. From Delta's perspective, they were protecting the passenger and contacting the person who booked it, which makes sense.

When I've had travel booked by other parties (either a secretary or a travel agent) I have always been annoyed when they called me - unless it was a schedule change.

jadenus

I'm sorry, but you think the bank isn't a party to the transaction? They're at least making a merchant fee on the transaction that they'll lose out on if it's fraud.

In the Delta situation, there's a clear delineation between personal and business. One transaction was performed by a "travel department" and one was performed by the individual himself. Further, the company's travel department is clearly not authorized on the individual's SkyMiles account, which is why Delta told the company that OP had until midnight to cancel, not "Would you like to cancel that second ticket now?".

If there's nothing inherently confidential about an airline booking, it's perfectly fine if a stranger calls up and gains access to know all the bookings on your account? That would be bad enough, but in OP's case, Delta actually called an unauthorized party and shared details about his personal SkyMiles account. They sought out to breach his confidentiality.