Delta Different Cabins Same Itinerary
 

I will have a traveling party of 6 or 7 on Delta MCO to SLC in about 10 months. Wife and I will be in first and the rest in coach either paid or on miles or a mix.

Is there a way to do this on the site so we are all on the same itinerary? I specifically ask for the free checked bag benifet of my Delta Plat Amex or Delta Gold B Amex if it matters.

I have not figured out a way to buy tickets with people traveling in different cabins on the web site.. An add to cart feature would be nice.

One thing I considered is outside of this is getting an extra seat in coach for my parents so they have an empty middle seat between them. If I bought that using my skymiles number in coach with my last name and extraseat for the first name. Would that mean I and them are on the same itinerary so they get free checked bags? Any issues with me having a seat in both cabins?

Is there a better way to accomplish it? I assume calling and buying tickets with a person costs more. Same if I just went to the local airport ticket counter.

It is not possible to book a single reservation for people in different cabins. All passengers in a single reservation must be seated in the same cabin.

A simpler alternative to get the free checked bag benefit might be to have one of the coach passengers sign up for the DL Amex card. For the basic Gold card, the annual fee is typically waived for the first year I believe.

DL no longer charges extra to book over the phone, that charge was eliminated several months ago.

You cannot put different cabin class passengers on the same PNR. At most, you can call DL and ask the agent to "link" = cross reference them, but this doesn't do much if anything.

You cannot double book yourself for different cabins on the same flight.

You cannot use your FF number for your father or any person other than you yourself.

You also can't combine award tickets and paid tickets on one PNR.

I would be buying an extra seat which I believe is a valid / allowed thing to do. Some large passengers are required to do it. My original thought is to book the extra seat for my dad so he would have two seats next to each other plus my mom to complete the 3 seats in the row. Then I thought why can't I book myself an extra seat and it is next to him. Is it because my extra seat is not near me (different cabin) or are you saying nobody can book an extra seat just for extra room?

1. Signing up for a CC merely to get free bags on one trip is a really bad use of credit. A checked bag is $25.
2. PNR's can't be linked. All that DL does is enter the other PNR identifier in the PNR notes. That does absolutely nothing other than possibly keep groups together in IRROPS.

You can book an extra seat for father or self or whomever, but the extra seat must be booked with name of person who will benefit from the space. The idea is that the extra seat is kept next to that passenger, not randomly assigned somewhere on the aircraft. So if you want father to benefit from the extra seat, it must be booked in his name and associated with his ticket, not yours.

BTW, DL doesn't give FF credit for extra seats.

Yeah it might end up being $25 x 5 so looking at options to use my benifets to help them. If we check in together I think I can take a few bags on my and my wifes first class tickets.

The best you'll be able to do is ask at checkin. As long as they checkin with you, the DL agent should be willing to give the one bag free. No different then both being in coach on separate reservations.

You should let your parents fly in First :)

That can be a good solution.

Parents in first on award tickets - and with the F baggage allowance.

The OP on a paid ticket (earning MQM) in coach with the rest of the travelers (also paid) in a single reservation to take advantage of the Amex bag benefit.

It doesn't work that way. And it shouldn't.

Keep in mind that if you are all traveling on the same itinerary, anyone booked in F gets 2 free bags -- so regardless of who it is, if you were to book 2 passengers in F, that is 4 free bags that could be shared across the entire party, even if you're not all booked on the same reservation.

First class passenger bags are also allowed to be up to 70 pounds, whereas the free bags with the credit card are only 50 pounds -- if it's a longer trip and you're packing large suitcases, that extra weight can be valuable. If you're all traveling together you could even get together in the airport lobby and figure out which bags are heaviest and make sure those are checked under the F reservation.

This assumes that people in the group know each other well enough to check someone else's bag. It's not necessarily a wise thing to do, especially for international travel. Do you really know what someone could have in their bag that could cause trouble for you?

Seems to be family, at least 4 of the group.