The most expensive miles + cash ticket ever?
 

OK - let me explain, originally I paid 87.5K miles plus $360 so my wife could fly from SFO/MSP/DLH RT and in F on the SFO/MSP legs. Yes that's expensive but it gets even steeper. My wife has a change of plans since it's a family visit for her and she wants to get off the plane in MSP, and keep the return as is.

I tell her to call DL since the res is in her name, she does and has too wait a total of almost 3 hours before anyone can help her with this simple request. She is firm in not wanting to pay the $150 change fee since she is just canceling the leg from MSP/DLH and they can resell her seat, the flight is 4 days out. Eventually someone comes on the line and says "OK everything has been zero-out" with no other explanation and they quickly hang up on her.

The zero-outing was her losing her seat in F, for the SFO/MSP leg and is placed in "economy basic" with no seat assignment, I get $5k miles re-deposited in my account, when I tell her she is in "economy basic" with only middle seats left she says she is too beaten down to do anything about it.

So the new price of the original ticket is 82.5K plus $360 cash and only 1 F seat on the MSP/SFO leg everything else in "basic economy"

I go online and get her back into her original F seat on the SFO/MSP leg for an additional 22.5K miles and not change fee, so now the total cost of the ticket is 100k miles $360 cash for a 4 leg domestic trip with 2 short legs on a RJ in "basic economy". Needless to say I've sent a complaint email just asking for 22.5K miles to re-deposited.

Can anyone top that? Thanks for reading it all.
Paul

If the original ticket was 87.5k and you got charged 22.5k extra, that makes it 110k, not 100k.

To each his own, but even 87.5k + $360 is far in excess of what I could stomach for an itinerary like that.

OP - what exactly are you looking for besides a spot to rant?

Yes, the ticket was expensive. Also, why was your wife firm in NOT paying the change fee? She was changing the ticket without status, and the fee is due. Doesn't matter if DL "resells" the seat or not.

My guess is likely her entitled attitude came across to the phone agents, and they did whatever they could so she didn't pay anything extra and to get her off the phone as quickly as possible. As a Diamond I don't expect any change fees to be automatically waived for me even! (Awards 72 hours out from departure aside)

In the future: exercise some patience and kindness with the phone agents. And stay on the phone with a reissuing agent until you receive and have opened the email receipt and have verified the changes.

From what I gather, because of the insistence for not paying a change fee, the agent simply booked your wife onto a cheaper fare and collected the change fee rather than refund you the difference.

Don't tell your wife, but Delta got their change fee....And probably more.
Seriously, don't tell your wife.

Welcome to the world of airline pricing. Unfortunately I don't think Delta is in the wrong here, for a few reasons:

- Simply "cancelling" the MSP/DLH leg is not as simple as that. You are changing your flights from SFO/MSP/DLH to SFO/MSP -- your destination is changing and that is a different ticket. Remember that per contract of carriage, is MSP is just your layover, and if IRROPs happened, Delta has no responsibility to route you through MSP -- only to get you to DLH.

- It doesn't matter that DL can "resell" her seat -- there is a change being made and the rules are you must pay a $150 change fee (or whatever fare rules govern your ticket) since you are changing the ticket.

- The increased price in miles is unfortunately how it works nowadays -- airfare prices tend to trend up as departure gets closer, and now award prices do too, so you cannot demand that your ticket (purchased before T-4 days) should be the same price as the ticket price at T-4 days.

I thought PWM tickets are actually full mileage tickets. The cash is a discounted purchase of miles, right? Not sure how you could go from a mileage ticket to E class...?

PWM tickets are revenue tickets paid for with miles (and maybe some cash). Miles + Cash tickets are award tickets, partially paid for with cash.

Jeez y'all have Delta stock or something?
 

I'll take down the post, My wife wasn't rude to any CS agent on the phone, why don't you all lighten up a little and go outside and get some sunshine, instead of flaming people on a "frequent flyer" social media site.

-Paul

I don't think the assumption your wife had an entitled attitude was a fair assumption.

That being said, I think people here want you to know that your perspective might not be the correct one. With airlines, the customer is not always right because airlines are too complex. :)

I think the end point is that your complaint may be futile since it's not really warranted.