T-15.01

and if there's others with real-time experience on using GUC with KLM please reply. I am thinking there may well have been a rule change that is preventing the front line agents and/or Support desk agents getting these cleared. When I had the supervisor tell me she'd received authorization to do each segment separately, and then still, it was being "declined by KLM" it makes me think that this is not just a coincidence now. I was able to upgrade last year on KLM without any issues (well, took numerous calls, but still made it work)

T-15.01

OK, finally got it to go through. Probably the 15th agent I've dealt with over the past few days. So, for now, it appears if you're persistent enough, that you can make it work. but this is the longest I've ever had it take. oh my. Almost was ready to go another route, entirely!

UVAhoo06

Great to hear! What did you exactly say to the agent so that they could properly do this?

T-15.01

I wish I knew exactly the perfect words that made it work. I think I said the same thing each time, whether by text or online chat or phone call. I sensed I had the 'right agent' a couple of days ago, two times on the phone, and, once on online chat, and yet still....hour long calls yielded nothing.

I spent another hour plus on the phone last night and changed days. In this case the agent found when looking at the segments individually, she was able to see Z availability. So, changed my dates and, cancelled original tickets and then went to 'sell in' the upgrade certificate. At that time, she got the same denial from the system. Called support. They said "no can do, KLM won't permit it". She totally agreed with me that it made no sense that the system wouldn't let her do it with the start and finish (jfk-sin) as married. But said her hands were tied. Once she read my notes further said she wanted to call a manager again as she really wanted to see if she could do anything.

Put me on hold. And next thing you know. I get the "thank you for calling Delta" survey.

I gave it one last shot for last night. Started a chat. Got a supervisor supposedly. Explained the whole situation. Asked if I should split the records to make at least 1 seat at a time easier. He said not to do that. As I had the "only 2 seats left".

I said "what? do I have confirmed Business seats already?"

Reply was that yes, but it needed to be reticketed or else KLM would cancel. Unbelievable.

So he reticketed and I got segment 1 cleared. Then I asked about segment 2, and agent confirmed actually he could clear those as well.

It was an emotional roller coaster. I'm really not sure if I saved much, in the end.

About the best advice I have is to be really patient, and polite to them all. Whenever I got an agent telling me stuff that was absolutely not correct (e.g. "you cannot use GUC on partner airlines, sorry" or "you don't have any GUCs left") I just thanked them, said to have a great day, hung up and called back later in the day.

Eventually it seems, it works. Not sure if its us making the system work in our favor with agents who bend the rules or not, but if so, as long as they do, we just have to persist.

This is about the last best value use of GUC that I can tell.

T-15.01

hang on. another chapter. Delta cancelled the ticket outright. No notice. I have booked another flight today, and was looking at my trips - and it was gone. On the phone now. This saga is really unbelievable.

rylan

Sorry you are having such a horrible experience. This sounds similar to my recent experience with a flight a couple weeks ago where it took me several weeks and multiple agents and emails to get my GUC applied and ticket reissued... and that was just for an intra-EU flight on KLM metal which used to be super simple from my experience with same flights last year.

T-15.01

hah - thanks for your commiserations! I'm sorry too you had issues.

Phone call in to sort out was relatively easy - though it was still 55 minutes. No real explanation as to why the one from yesterday got cancelled. Something to do with it being automatic because one of the segments wasn't confirmed. Re-instated without issue, and compensation for the inconvenience issued. A nice touch I guess, but it just shouldn't be this difficult. If there's space, let the GUC be used. If there's not, no-one has anything to complain about. Oh, and have the whole group of staff answering phones and text messages at least as aware as the FT community here as to what the rules are!

And if anyone wants to hire me to do this for them, let me know.

Barbella7

After reading some of the recent experiences, I went in with low expectations. My ORD-AMS-CPT flights showed I0 Z1 on EF so I was concerned that the Z space was phantom to begin with (but I could book the flights on the DL flight numbers on DL.com in Z).

I fed the chat agent my PNR noting that I believed there was Z space and she thanked me for doing my homework. She was quickly able to snag the last Z space (I noticed on EF, it went down to I0 Z0 immediately thereafter). She indicated that she had to reach out to her support desk as she doesn’t do KL GUCs frequently but this only took about 10 minutes. I then saw I was now confirmed in business ORD-AMS-CPT with the ticket reissued.

Credit where credit is due, that was the easiest it’s been to use one of my GUCs. If only it were always that easy.