Involuntary Rerouting Rules
 

Looking for some assistance. This all occurred prior to the Delta outage on Sunday.

Was scheduled to fly SJC-SLC originally. Flight delays allowed me to switched to OAK-LAX-SLC (upgraded to First all legs)

Arrived at OAK. Flight was delayed by 45 mins, which would cause me to misconnect at LAX.

Delta involuntarily rerouted me to to fly out from SFO-SLC on Alaska Airlines as well (6 of us in total).

Delta seems confused on how to provide MQM credit for this leg. Am I eligble to claim ORC for OAK-LAX-SLC? Additionally, does this count as IDB?

No DOT IDB rules do not apply. They only apply to oversell situations where you have a confirmed seat and they are not able to board you. The flight must actually fly in order qualify. A flight that is cancelled does not qualify you for IDB. Nor does missing a flight due to a delay.

The O in ORC stands for Original, so that would be SJC-SLC. The alternative is your actually flown segment SFO-SLC.

No, it is not an IDB unless you present yourself for boarding and you are turned away because the flight is oversold.

I suggest you try see if you can get reimbursed for SJC-OAK-SFO expenses too.

Thanks for the tips all! Took ORC since my return leg would net me some more RDM (not by much but better than the 2 bonus RDM that I earned with Alaska)

Since I flew on Alaska, Alaska did charge me a bag fee. Delta could not refund it...but they gave me a $25 travel voucher for the future.

The bag fee is a problem once you accept an interline reroute which involves reclaiming your bags. DL's offer of the voucher is about as good as it gets.

Could you have put in for reimbursement for ground transfer expense for OAK to SFO? And then once you were submitting for reimbursement, I would have included bag fees...

Voucher is fine, but for $25 it's more headache than it's worth. Cash is fungible.

In this case, SFO - SLC would be preferable to SJC - SLC. It's about 14 more miles.

They gave me a shuttle pass so I didn't pay anything to get from OAK to SFO. The shuttle literally picked up crew from SFO to OAK. Then it picked us up to go the reverse route.