5K Miles for 2 Day Delay.
 

I resubmitted for the delayed flight They refunded me the hotel $139 and 5K mile BIG F****G DEAL. 2 days delay and 5K WOW!!! I don’t think Delta wants my business.

”Thank you for contacting Delta Air Lines and for providing the necessary information. We know you were disappointed with the delay of Flight 303 operated by Delta Air Lines from San Francisco to New York- Kennedy on June 29, 2023. Pilot decision to hold the flight due to maintenance issue prevented us from departing San Francisco as originally scheduled. I’m truly sorry for the disruption to your travel plan, for missing your connecting flight, for the unexpected out-of-pocket expenses you incur, and for all the other subsequent inconveniences you have endured.
Operating on schedule is equally important to Delta. When this type of situation occurs, our goal is to make every effort to resolve the issue and get customers to their destination.

I’ve forwarded your comments to our Flight Operations Leadership team for an internal review to improve our services for your future travel. Emails like yours help us address negative experience and provide better customer service in the future, with that said thanks for sharing.

To symbolize our apology, I have issued 5,000 miles to you and travel partner. Please allow up to three business days for these miles to be posted to each of your SkyMiles account. There is no amount of miles that can be placed on what any passenger goes through when they have a negative travel experience. What we provide is simply a gesture of apology to let you know that we recognize your concerns.

We will be processing your payment of $139.29 via Automated Clearing House (ACH) transfer. You will receive a separate email, from Delta Air Lines, Inc. via our third-party payment processor JPMorgan <[email protected]>, to register for your funds. You may want to check your spam folder if you don’t see the email in your inbox.

You have 15 days to accept your payment through our ACH system; if left unclaimed, payment will automatically be converted to a paper check and sent via USPS to the address on file:”

"There is no amount of miles that can be placed on what any passenger goes through"... I guess you should be glad you got anything with mantras like this:rolleyes: Knowing that DL seems to be a lot more generous with reimbursements and a lot less generous with miles nowadays, I will definitely be booking a hotel that I am happy with in future IRROPs.;)

My partner and I were flying CDG-MSP (DL139) in D1 on August 27th. After boarding somebody noticed a dent in the plane and they couldn't figure out where it came from. We sat on the plane for about 4 hours with progressive delays before they cancelled it.
Rebooking process was hectic but ultimately they got in under control and put us up in the Courtyard for the night and scheduled a rescue flight (DL 9913) for the following day. Turns out they were able to repair the dent overnight and we boarded the same aircraft the next day.

After arrival we proactively received $250 travel credit vouchers each. I also sent in a complaint with the attached EU261 form requesting 600 euro compensation each. Is this the correct avenue for this request?

Additionally, my fiancé also received 25k SkyMiles as well since one of the FAs spilled a tray of mimosas on her during boarding which they did via the tablet on the plane.

That’s correct- I used the compliment/complaint form on the web site. Delta seems to tend to proactively throw some eCredits or Miles at passengers in those kinds of situations, probably in hopes some peopel will think that’s it so they don’t go on to claim EU 261 compensation.

Had a comedy of errors on my DAL-ATL-ALB routing in early August. The plane flying the 6:15pm DAL-ATL was late from LAX, and arrived without a gate available. The main DL gate at DAL was occupied with an LAX-bound plane requiring maintenance, and their backup gate at DAL was occupied with an AS plane who had just started boarding. Plane finally got to the gate an hour after it landed, and we then learned a member of the crew timed out. New crew was inbound on a flight from Atlanta - flight didn't end up leaving until 11:15pm. Easy misconnection - I cut my losses around 9pm and decided to rebook for the next morning and not have to try to deal with getting to a hotel in ATL at 2:30am.

Just received reimbursement for a DAL airport hotel plus the meal (around $175 cash), as well as 15k miles. I felt that was appropriate for a 12 hour arrival delay including the overnight.

JFK BSO staff + redcoat lied to me and said they wouldn't issue a file reference number for a domestic bag that hadn't been offloaded until 90 minutes after arrival. Later called baggage line to complain and was on hold for an hour, and then I got a prerecorded message saying the office had closed and got hung up upon. Emailed Richard Cox directly since I was repeatedly lied to, with an opening volley of asking to be compensated for my time at xx/hr. What should I more reasonably expect?

I can't comment on the compensation, but did want to add that JFK baggage operations and support office are absolutely awful. I've had cancelled flights and they've refused to even attempt to return my bag or redirect it to a new flight (this on domestic flights without crates). And for those who blame the NYC area, this is specific to JFK. LGA is fine - never had an issue there and the staff will do all they can to make sure the bag reaches you or moves to an updated flight. I know JFK has to deal with international flights which adds complexity, but the operations and customer support staff at JFK vs. LGA are night and day.

Had something similar happen to us today. We were involuntarily downgraded from PS to Main for our ex EU TATL flight to ATL. DL issued $500 eCredits for my partner and me (without us asking for it). Now I'm wondering if using these vouchers forfeits our claim to EC261 (75% reimbursment of the fare)?

Not necessarily, since you have nowhere agreed to these in lieu of compensation. PS to main is likely more of a difference, though you may also need to fight them to get more than the PS you paid for to Y-day-of difference they're likely going to offer.

Do the EC261 calculation and see if it's worthwhile and still put a claim in.

There is also the question of compensation vs simply difference in fare that needs to be refunded anyways.
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I've had mixed experiences, with the agent in the baggage area being grossly incompetent ("yes, your bag was never loaded, it's still in Paris") and then the baggage office lady telling us "it actually just came down the belt" and then walked with us back towards baggage claim and retrieved the bags and waited for customs to clear them. She wasn't surprised when we told her who had misinformed us, though...

Upon check-in, the lady said that they are going to issue $500 eCredits per passenger (which they already did the day before) + reimburse the fare difference between PS and Main within the next 10 days without us having to file any forms or the like (so DOT comp instead of EC261).

EC261: I am not entirely sure on how to do the calculation to see if its worthwile going after EC261. As I understand, EC261 is based upon the base fare + YR of the affected segment. In our case, the outbound had a domestic connection which was totally fine. Only the TATL of the outbound was affected by the downgrade. I have read somewhere that in such cases, the segments are caluclated based on great circle distance (in our case 90% of the great cirlce distance).
1069 EUR (base fare + YR) / 2 (Assumption to split this evenly as only the outbound TATL segment was affected) * 90% * 75% = 360 EUR

DOT: Is it known which Main cabin fare they are using for the calculation of the fare difference? The cheapest Main fare on the day I purchased my tickets or the full flex Y fare on the day of departure? In the later case, the difference would certainly be negative...

In the BA thread there's some references including to court cases that then became the "Mennens formula" - I've never gone through it myself.
For when airlines calculate the fare difference, I've seen reports that they often use the unrestricted Y to compare to what you purchased, which is obviously inadequate. But I'm not sure if someone has taken them to court about it. A while back I've been able to keep pushing AA to refund me a PE to Y downgrade and they eventually did after some back and forth.

If you do get the actual fare difference, or very close to it, and the $500 credit, I personally would just call it a day at that point and not waste more energy.

It is certainly not "the cheapest Main fare on the day of purchase" - Delta does not know what that number is.

In my experience, it is not determinable how they calculate the difference, and is usually quite prejudiced in Delta's favor. Once you accept a downgrade, you have the losing hand and are begging for whatever DL deigns to give you (my general rule is always refuse the downgrade in the first place). EC261 might have more teeth, but if you actually had a $1,050-ish RT (inclusive of YR) I guess there isn't that much original fare to refund anyway :)

They should be able to calculate this, though it may be a computationally expensive calculation if you have to go through the fare filings and the inventory transaction logs for that flight.

That’s surprising. If anybody, wouldn’t it be DL to know the fares they were offering on a specific day in the past?

Yes, but that’s easier said than done. In our case denying the downgrade would have cost us a day of our vacation.

Since the check in lady said they are going to compensate the fare difference within the next 10 days, is it known from other cases that Delta actually follows through with the compensation or do we need to get active?