El Boocho

Weren't you allowed to hold for 48hrs? I think I'd prefer holding at no cost for 48hrs over a 24hr refund policy most of the time. I'm sure it makes much of a difference for me personally.

Canarsie

One was allowed to hold a reservation for up to 48 hours without purchasing a ticket. If the reservation was not confirmed with full payment of the airfare, the reservation simply automatically cancelled.

I may be mistaken, but the way I understand this new policy, one may purchase a ticket and yet cancel the ticket within 24 hours of the purchase without penalty. After 24 hours, standard penalties for cancelling a purchase apply.

Bulldog King

Heh...it sure seems like it.

Last night, I once again tried to price a 1-way JFK-BWI itinerary and this time, the cheapest fare that was displayed turned out to actually be an open-jaw RT to PBI (actual routing JFK-PBI-ATL-BWI).

Heck, it even gave me a similar itinerary when I switched LGA for JFK.......whereas a few weeks ago, all I would get when I used LGA was an error message that said that there were NO scheduled flights between LGA and BWI (something I'm well aware of :P ).

Oh well, for $138.60 all-in.....I ended up booking a LGA-FLL-ATL-BWI itinerary (1 Song and 2 mainline segments) via the "old" method (multi-city).

A.J.

atl runner

I was going to start a thread on this, but will weave it into this one as several posts here have touched on this general subject.

I've noticed recently that I'm not getting all the flight options available for a certain itinerary, even if I know they exist. Here's the most recent example.

I did this for a FC ATL/SRQ with a specific time of 12PM.
I know there is such a flight available in both directions, and with seats available. It comes back and gives me a 10AM flight on the outbound and the noon one that I want on the return. That is the only option I get. However, if I then go in and try doing a one-way down to SRQ with the same time it does give me the 12PM flight option, along with the 10AM one. In fact, there are 5 of the 14 FC seats shown as available. If it can give me this option on the one-way, then obviously it is also available on the outbound of an out and back. Therefore, why isn't it giving me the option I specifically ask for?

jerry crump

From a salesmanship prosspective this helps them close the deal. Any salesman would rather charge your credit card today and offer a refund tomorrow than hold the sale for you hoping you will follow through tomorrow. I think this one is smart business. Even better would be if they would wait 24 hours before running the charge against your card or give you that option.

DLmedalliongold

I'm having similar problems. I was trying to book SLC-EWR. The cheapest fare it was giving me was with connections in ATL, and it was $481. I could not get the non-stops to show no matter what I did. (I assumed they were sold out) Thank god for may travel agent. Somehow she booked me on the non-stops on the same dates I was looking for with a "U" on the outboud and a "L" on the return, and cheaper! $380. DL.com was showing combos of "L" and "K" with all kinds of stupid connections (3hr layovers, etc)

They need to show the non-stops with all the other stupid flights they want to sell leisure travelers, so we can see and book them.

atl runner

I was screwing something very simple up here so this specific problem was my fault, which I have now corrected, thanks to a nice woman at the DAL on-line help desk.

vasantn

Forgive me if this has been mentioned before, but I was shocked to hear this from SMS today. I was told that I have to buy the ticket and then, if I want, I can cancel it within 24 hours. But there is no more courtesy hold.

If true, this is yet another enhancement that we didn't ask for. Leo's spirit is alive and well.

ecaarch

But if you buy a ticket, even online, you have 24 hours to cancel and get a refund. It matches a NW policy that I think is pretty fair. Then again, my glass is half-full.

vinnmann

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PMMMDL

I personally think this new book-em now/cancel within 24 hours policy stinks. Considering that most of my flights are international and multi-stop, I often need to confirm my plans with my customers post-booking but pre-ticketing. Trying to get an answer overseas in 24 hours and trying to utilize PMUs on top of it, it's all just starting to get too complicated.

vinnmann

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TTT

A quick question, if I were to buy a ticket departing from LAX at 9:30pm PDT on Friday, does that give you until 12:00am Sunday or 12:00am Monday. Maybe more simply, does Delta base this on Eastern Time, or the time zone of your departure city? I called SMS and she put me on hold for a few minutes while she asked a few people and she could not come up with an answer. Her guess was that it was based on Eastern Time, but she wasn't sure.

stuck_in_mco

Hi all:

I’ll like your collective wisdom upon this situation.

I’d used the Delta.com website to buy a DL ticket on Mon (Oct 17th). The e-mailed confirmation indicated that a paper ticket will be issued. So far so good ...

According to the Delta website’s "Low Fare Promise" page , there’s a risk-free cancellation policy which states The footnote to this states: On Tuesday (Oct 18th) evening, I needed to cancel the paid-for ticket, and called DL to cancel the paid-for ticket, and to obtain a full refund. As far as I can tell, I'd fulfilled the conditions stated in the risk-free cancellation policy, i.e.

1) The ticket was purchased directly from DL for travel originating in the US. Note: a paper ticket was issued because it had international segments on code-share partners.
2) The cancellation request was requested prior to the midnight of the day (on Tue) after the ticket was purchased (on Mon).

However the CSR said that there's a US$150 cancellation fee. When I referred to the "Low Fare Promise"'s risk-free cancellation policy, the lady said it doesn't apply to paper tickets. I pointed out that the "Low Fare Promise" page did not specifically exclude paper tickets, and she demurred.

After many back-and-forth's, (I kept calm because she's just doing her job, and very professionally too), I'd asked her to document that I questioned the need to pay the cancellation fee, which contradicts the "Low Fare Promise" section on risk-free cancellation. Despite the $150 cancellation fee, I still proceeded to cancel because my travel plans changed.

Do you think DL is honoring its risk-free cancellation policy? And what do you think I should do? Thanks, all!

NoStressHere

Assuming you bought it on the website, and paid with credit card, I would say they owe you money.

And, I would guess that the agent did not know what she was talking about.

There is a part that you might be close to, and maybe that is what she is confused with??

"If you wish to pay for your ticket with any paper currency—such as cash, or check, or denied boarding voucher—you may make the reservation over the phone, which will guarantee the fare for 24 hours. Your ticket must be purchased at a Delta ticketing location by midnight of the following day, or your reservation will be cancelled. Once purchased, these tickets will not be eligible for cancellation under the Risk-Free Cancellation policy."