One thing I like about AMEX. International stuff they are pretty lenient. Don't really need to call in or make any notes.

My Chase card they want the dates.

There is still an ongoing issue (unless recently fixed at last, I've been told it's been on the list of major bugs to fix for years now) cards where the issuer doesn't support AVS and the AVS response is X. As some who've been involved in testing and rolling it out tell me, devs forgot to put in handling for that so the system simply hangs. I've had that confirmed to me several times. Basically, phone reps need to call the Delta merchant account processor and do phone auth, but most get confused and don't know how to properly do that (they need to find the #, the Delta merchant account, etc., and then key in the phone authorization properly in the system - all things that supposedly "Delta no longer trains" its staff in and that are hardly well documented). Online it works, but doesn't work by phone. By phone only works in the old reservations system/interface that was at least less buggy. Other than phone auth, that is the only other workaround for Delta res agents.

I am on the phone right now with Delta trying to book an Award that is being held and all my cards (Delta AmEx) are being declined.

If you login to your Amex account are they giving you an explanation?

It's quite possible it's a Delta.Dumb IT problem too.

Oddly I purchased two refundable tickets on VX a week or so ago that showed up as one transaction on the CC. The refunds came through separately though. Weird. Normally each ticket is charged individually.

They finally figured it out - seems my reservation was corrupted somehow and they had to rebuild it. Finally got tickets booked for the award and mostly in J. The last two-hour hop is Y but I'll live.

It is always like this when I book DL tickets (even paid) that involve other airlines. I still miss the old NW website that worked better than any other site before or since.

Very few merchants train staff in processing authorizations by phone. Mainly since for most that would mean their system is offline and a manual transaction would need be submitted. It just normally doesnt happen much For those times the system is online, but need a manual authorization number.

Delta.Dumb!

Exactly. It shouldn't happen. But it does with Delta, unlike with other merchants who believe in QA prior to release.

Delta customer service tells me Delta requires a street address and number- unfortunately my card is billed to work and we don't have a street address (our E-911 and USPS address lack a street name/number.) One of the delta supervisors helped me figure out a fake address that had enough of the actual address to validate, and still had what looked like a street address to it (even if the street is non existent.) She told me they do that for lot of military guys whose address is building XXX.


Never had a problem with other airlines, hotels, vendors etc. Nor does Delta have a problem when they receive the reservation electronically.

Yes, and online it'll work on delta.com, just by phone it won't as DL has tied their phone reservations reps hands behind their back by not allowing them to handle such situations (DL simply didn't bother to put in any handling for such a case, the new buggier than ever res system simply hangs; it's a well known bug that DL hasn't bothered to fix for years; impacts esp. a lot of international pax - but then again DL always makes it clear that it just wants to be a small regional domestic airline in how ignorantly and inconsiderably it does so many things... :rolleyes:).

One workaround is to get a phone rep to put the reservation together. Have them end it (save it). Then load it up online and see if you can complete the purchase it and ticket it online. That will often (not always) work.

In 5 years, I can count on one hand how often I've had to call for manual credit card authorization. It's not hard, but it is infrequent. Certainly not something that would require extensive training (manual credit card approval IS covered in training).

There is no "old" reservation interface. The current GUI rolled out in early 2013 and the old one was retired summer of 2013. There's Delta Term, which hasn't been worked in by frontline res reps in at least 10 years.

It's not taught to frontline reps anymore because the GUI can do all but 2 things an agent comes across in 99.9% of phone calls. (In case you're wondering, the two things are checking Minimum Connection Time, and unhooking a voucher from a PNR not yet ticketed. And both of those things ARE taught.) Now, to be fair, there are some other functions that can help a frontline specialist, like looking into an old PNR, checking the Upgrade Waitlist, etc. While there is a way to run cards through in DeltaTerm, it uses the exact same address verification system as the GUI, and I haven't had to use it in over a year, and that was because, as I mentioned earlier, a release of the GUI did have a bug that caused forms of payment to get hung up.

In my case I can only say that the agent described the transactions as card declined yet my bank has given me 5 authorisation codes which shows that they should not have been. This wasn't a funds issue as 3 of those 4 were for the full amount. The first was actually for just one of the tickets. Today the agent stated that the transactions must have been declined as no ticket was issued.

During today's successful transaction I heard the agent ask herself why line 2 of the address was a problem, and then she said she'd have to have a colleague on "another system" re-enter my card details so I had to give them again.

The TBM desk does handle address discrepancies, and they may be able to push things through that a frontline rep may not.

I believe I've dealt with them once, when a customer had a billing address on a US Military Base overseas.