2016 Compensation Thread

Flight was delayed (MX), replacement plane went MX, flight delayed again. I re-routed, arriving much earlier than scheduled (but with a lot fewer MQMs). 2500 SkyPesos showed up for the delay.

Have you written in for ORC to make up for the missing MQM?

No, ORC was what I got. I was playing games with SDC.

LIM-ATL-JFK
Status: No status
Fare: delta one (I) for first leg, first (P) for second
What happened: 3 hour delay out of LIM (due to improperly loaded baggage, weight distribution in ATL). Missed connection, and they said all flights were sold out so had a 9 hour layover, no meal voucher (just lounge access obviously), placed on standby for a flight with a 4.5 hr layover and was placed in a middle seat in economy comfort while a medallion member was upgraded into the seat in first (apparently they get priority over paid customers if on standby...).

Compensation: $200 voucher.

They should also refund the difference between P and the lowest coach fare available at the time you purchased P, but that's going to take a lot of arguing.

The customer on standby for F should have priority, but you have to talk to the GA to ensure that.

Since the delay and missed connection were Delta's fault, you should get compensation for that as well.

Route: ATL-MDE
Fare: L
Status: None
What Happened: Mrs. Froman's special meal (and all Y special meals, according to the FA) wasn't loaded to the airplane.
Compensation: 2 $25 gift cards

Coming up later this week: What her compensation was when they didn't load her special meal on the MDE-ATL flight.

Yeah, reading this thread I've apparently missed out on lots of miles (no coffee on flight, sleeping in JFK after being displaced from EWR on my own dime for taxi, several mechanical delayed flights, bags being delivered 24 hours later to my hotel room because they were put on the wrong flight).

Who do you complain to, I don't have twitter. Do I have to call someone?

I guess I've always felt these are just experiences of travel, and something to live with. The only compensation I've gotten this year were $400 and $500 vouchers for voluntary oversold, and a $500 amazon gift card for voluntary oversold

You can use "contact us" on the website, or phone in. I'd suggest the website, I'd consider phoning to be pushing it.

To add my limited experience to this....

A few weeks ago I flew PDX->IAD->PDX (actually PDX->ATL->IAD->DTW->PDX) after buying coach and then paying for the FC upgrade (which is a funny story in itself).

It turned out to be "one of those trips". On the PDX->ATL leg, my IFE screen went black at the end of the safety video, and never came back on. The flight attendant said that she had rebooted it 3 times and couldn't take time to mess with it anymore. What really sucked was that I never bother to use the entertainment system because I have never really found headphones that work well with my hearing aids. Just before this trip, I found some. Then I couldn't use them. Anyway, that was a minor annoyance on Monday.

Friday evening, I arrive at the gate for my flight home. Scheduled boarding time comes and goes, but nothing is going on. About 10 minutes later, the Gate Agent gets on the PA and says that they are having a little problem because one of the passengers on the incoming flight (which had apparently arrived and deplaned before I got there) had gotten a piece of luggage stuck in the overhead bin.

I am not worried, at this point, even though I only have a 55 minute layover in Detroit.

About 10 minutes after that, the pilots comes up and gets on the PA. He says that a passenger has gotten a guitar case stuck in the closet. Apparently it shifted during flight, and now they can't get the door to open to get it out. He says that the passenger tried to get it out, then the flight attendants, the Gate Agent went down and gave it a shot, and he himself had tried. No luck. They had called for Maintenance to come look at it.

At this point the Gate Agent had started calling up passengers who were obviously going to miss their connections, and from what I could overhear, was rebooking them on other airlines - this was the last flight of the day to DTW.

Finally, at about 45 minutes past scheduled departure, the pilot came back up and said that the good news was that Maintenance had been able to get the guitar out of the closet. The bad news was that they did so by chopping through the closet door with a fire axe. The further bad news was that they were going to have to fix it before they could fly, per FAA regs.

The gate agent called me up, to see what they could do about getting me home. She rebooked me on a flight through MSP that would only cause me to be about an hour late, but one of the other agents looked over her shoulder and said that she couldn't book a 22 minute connection for me. Then she told me that she would put me up in a hotel in Dulles and fly me home first thing in the morning. At this point, my original flight to DTW is boarding. THEN she says, you know what, I will just send you to Detroit on your original flight, and put you up overnight there...

She hands me a boarding pass with an economy seat on it. I had been quiet and calm up to that point. Sometimes weird stuff happens. I said "I had a first class seat on that plane right behind you, before you started messing with it. Why do I have to move to coach?" So, she fixes that.

She tells me that they are now waiting on me to close the door, so she wants me to check in with the gate agent at DTW for my hotel voucher.

Of course, half of my plane is trying to get something for their trouble once I get to DTW, but they eventually got me a voucher for a Days Inn. Here's a tip - do NOT stay at the Days Inn. Free is *way* too expensive. I am not especially picky, and I was close to horrified by what I saw in that hotel....

Finally made it to PDX at about noon on Saturday, after a brief detour to SLC on the way.

I don't normally complain about stuff, but in this case, it seemed like they dropped the ball every time they touched it. I used the Comments/Complaints link on Delta.com to explain what had not gone well, and that I was surprised and disappointed. About 2 hours later I received a nice email apologizing for the problems and crediting 20K miles to my account. I would have been happy with the apology, so the miles were definitely a bonus.

Route: CZM-ATL-onward
Fare: V
Status: None
What Happened: Monday, after 2 hours on board in CZM, deplaned. Replacement aircraft sent from ATL, said to arrive at 7:30pm, actual arrival 10:15pm. They decided to wait in ATL to get needed equipment/people to repair original AC. Finally arrived in ATL ~2am, cleared immigration only to wait for luggage for ~1/2 hour, other pax overheard something about a shift change. Put up at BW East, finally in room at 4:30am, home next day. Dry ham and cheese sandwiches for all in CZM, as all restaurants close ~4pm in terminal.
Compensation: proactively sent 10k miles

Is this reasonable? I've never asked to be compensated before. I replied (not asking for anything more) stating the things that I found annoying, such as waiting on baggage at that hour when no one else is arriving, two shuttles and 45 minutes to get to hotel, no food option on flight other than snack/pretzels. Anyway, 5 y.o. son got same proactive 10k, assume wife did too, but haven't checked.

Route: LAX-JFK-ATL
Fare: X (OU at gate)
Status: DM
What Happened: Lie-flat seat from JFK to ATL broke after takeoff and stayed locked in the flat position. Was moved to a seat in the third-to-last row as the plane was otherwise full.
Compensation: 10K miles

For someone without any status, yes, I would say it is reasonable. Alternatively, what do you think is fair?

You mentioned you replied and pointing out to them that certain things annoyed you. The most this will procure from DL is another generic apology response, given they have already offered you compensation.

If you want something else, you need to specifically ask for it in your reply. They may or may not grant your request, but take note that they may retract the miles and offer you something else that, depending on your perspective, may not be as valuable (e.g. a $50 gift card). They definitely won't even consider alternative/additional compensation unless you specifically ask.

I wonder what would've happened if this was a sold out flight.

My understanding is that the majority, if not all lie flats have manual operational capabilities. I've seen first-hand on the 767 a FA ask a J passenger to stand up and they were able to remove the cushions and manually put the seat into bed mode. While this might have been a 757, it sounds like OP possibly had some lazy FA's who thought it was easier to just stick them back in coach.

Good question. There were 11 seats open at the gate and only 10 on the list. So I assume 1 nonrev that could have potentially taken a jump seat, if absolutely necessary (I asked to do this for landing to stay in the forward cabin for deplaning efficiency and was told I couldn't).

If the plane was completely full and there weren't any employees that could take jump seats, I'm not sure what they would have done.