Simultaneous Reservations
 

I'm not even sure the correct words to describe this, much less to search for it successfully. We have airline tickets ATL-YVR for a certain date. Due to concern about a personal matter, we might find ourselves in NYC instead of ATL. Putting aside travel insurance and other measures to mitigate the cost, what I would like to avoid is there not being any seats to accommodate us NYC-YVR.

It just so happens that Delta is the airline for both flights.

Will they notice that we have two reservations for which we cannot possible use both? Will they care? Clearly, I would book the second reservation fully refundable and cancel it the day before if I know we'll be in ATL as originally planned. Will there be other problems with this approach of which I'm not aware?

If you don't put your FF # in, and use a different cc, I doubt DL can spot this.

You should be ok. The safer thing would be to book a ticket NYC-ATL

Theoretically yes. They can see the second reservation and cancel one or both since it's impossible to be on both. Realistically the chance is low. I've never experienced, nor heard of anyone experiencing it.

Leave your SM# off the ticket, and only add it the day before once you know which you'll be taking.

The ATL-YVR flight leaves ATL earlier than we'd be able to leave NYC, so we would have no option other than to go straight from NYC to YVR.

Not part of Skyteam, but there is the nightly CX flight non-stop from JFK to YVR .

DL's upgraded anti-fraud software is much more sophisticated. Leaving your SM # off the ticket won't do a thing. You may or may not get caught and, if you do, DL may cancel one or both tickets and it may or may not contact you before doing so.

If you want to do this, book your NYC-YVR on AC, WS, CS, or PR, all of which have nonstop service on that route as well as DL.

Everything you wrote is entirely true. In theory. I don't think I've ever read a post about it actually happening. The only time I've heard of a ticket being cancelled is someone booking 2 separate reservations for the same person on the same flight.

Every airline deletes duplicate reservations, even Southwest with their behind-the-times IT system.

Change your ticket when you need to change your plans instead of being greedy and hogging seat inventory. :td:

I've had multiple reservations and it's not been a problem, even with my FF# in both. Once my issues settle, I do cancel so that it's back in the pool.

That's probably a better idea.

There's theory, and then there's practice.

Delta could - and I emphasize could - scan reservation records for duplicate names and birth dates. Those are statistically very improbable. They don't need SkyMiles numbers or credit card numbers. I don't believe they scan improbable duplicate names/birth dates for impossible flight combinations.

As for duplicate reservations, with two bookings on the same flight - oh, yes, they do look for that. Been there. Been caught - pretty quickly, I will add.

If the OP thinks Delta's duplicate detection is very advanced he might wait. What's the real benefit of duplicates here, anyway?

Ensuring that if the worst happens, and we find ourselves in NYC instead of ATL, that there are still seats available on flights from there to YVR so that we don't arrive in YVR too late.

I have been involved with a similar situation at least three times where they did catch the duplicates on different routes flying
at the same time. Even not entering the SM number didn't help. They caught it anyone (one was a SM ticket). I wouldn't risk it, but
you never know.

I think it's urban legend that Delta will cancel a ticket in the situation OP describes. It's entirely different than duplicate reservations (I.e. 2 seats on the same flight for the same passenger).

In fact, I have been specifically told to book tickets like OP wants to when my plans changed. I was flying YYZ-ATL and plans changed about 2 weeks out and I needed to get to Vegas. It was cheaper to book a new YYZ-LAS than to add ATL-LAS to the end of my trip, so the agent said to book the conflicting YYZ-LAS and just leave the YYZ-ATL because the value of the ticket was less than the change fee, and there would have been $0 residual value if I cancelled the YYZ-ATL. In another situation, I needed to get to LGA instead of ORD, and was advised to book both and take the one I needed.

This happens to me about once a year, I have been explicitly told to book the conflicting segments, and have never had a problem.

I occasionally book conflicting segments because I genuinely don't know which one I am going to fly and would like the chance to get at least an okay seat (aisle) and it's often better from a cost perspective to book 8 days in advance and pay a change fee then wait until 3 days in advance. I've never had an issue with this, but YMMV. These are generally corporate bookings so not sure if that makes any difference in terms of how they handle them.

I hope that all of those who are counseling the OP to go ahead and purchase multiple reservations on DL won't mind the day they have to purchase a Q fare ticket because the last L fares were bought up by someone doing the same... tying up seat inventory and releasing it near departure when only M fares remain.

Not my problem, and not really your problem either. Overbooking is already a thing, and these sorts of things go into what amount Delta is willing to overbook a flight by.

For the travel I do, we have to book ahead of time but occasionally don't know which site to go until last minute. So I would book flights for the same day originated from the same city to two different destinations and pick one on the day of flight. I have done this a couple of times and haven't had a problem with DL so far. My flight time never overlap though. That could be the reason DL never caught me.

Was there a common flight between reservations? Ie same originating flight

What's the problem with that? A sale is a sale. What if I wanted to bring my upright bass?

There's a process for that. The extra seat isn't booked under the passenger name. It's booked as LASTNAME/EXST Instead.

What I described had absolutely nothing to do with overbooking.

Pax X buys the last L fare seat, not sure he is going to need it, but wanting to hedge his bets.

Pax Y, shortly thereafter, has to buy a seat in a higher fare bracket.

Pax X later cancels the reservation.

Pax Y has been hosed just so Pax X can have the convenience of covering all bases with his multiple reservations.

If I am Pax Y, then it is indeed my problem.

I understand your concern. However, there are a couple of considerations though that you didn't factor in.

The airline has use of the passenger's money for the period from booking until cancellation. That's legal consideration and value. Remember: Your relationship as a passenger is with the airline, not the other passengers.

Beyond that, I don't think "hedging bets" and "covering bases" are appropriate descriptors in the context of this situation. This is planning due to a personal matter that I won't detail except that it involves a very aged parent and the concern about being able to be there with my family should the worst happen at one specific point in time when other travel arrangements make the logistics especially concerning. It is a couple of months away, and I see no need to take such precautions between now and then, or after that, despite the grave situation. This specific set of circumstances warrants especial contingency provisions that I wouldn't even consider for lesser circumstances.

I also wouldn't have even considered this if there weren't so many examples of people being unable to get to family funerals and such due to such consistently high load levels. Modern transportation is responsible for the diaspora of families around the country (and around the world, for that matter) but we've squeezed the system so much now that gaps are left behind in its service to us at the most vulnerable of times. The airlines aren't doing anything wrong, but if there is a legitimate way, within the airline's rules, to take precautions ourselves, then I feel we should do so. If it was not to be done, then they should explicitly disallow it.

In one of the instances, one flight was MIA/MSP and one flight was JFK/LAX. I can't remember on the specifics of the other
two as it was a while ago. I do know that one of the reservations did not have the frequent flyer number in the PNR and they
caught that. People can obviously book what they want. All I was trying to say is that Delta does see these things. They may
or may not take action. It seems like a lot of people are doing it.

This is exactly the same as if Pax X isn't sure if they need to travel at all or has plans that change and then cancels once they don't need the ticket. Are you suggesting people shouldn't book a plane ticket until they're 100% positive they're going to fly that exact itinerary?

You do realize that most airline's Contract of Carriage terms do in fact explicitly disallow it?

" In the event Delta determines that an individual has confirmed such bookings to one or more destination(s) on or about the same date(s), the carrier reserves the right to cancel all confirmed space associated with the multiple reservations without notice to the passenger or the person making the booking."

Delta considers expected overbooking rates on basically all fare classes sold - not just when it gets into an overbooking situation. Either way, not my problem. I'm paying a $200 penalty (change fee) to reserve a seat on a flight I might not take. That seems reasonable to me. If that isn't enough then they should raise the change fee - not cancelling pax on two reservations (which as noted per CoC they can do). In practice Delta seems fine with this.

On one, they called and nicely asked which itinerary was going to be used. On the second one, they did not call. They either texted or emailed and asked the same question.

Delta encourages double and triple bookings by PM and DM members who can book unlimited overlapping flights at zero risk as long as cancellations are made by T-72.

I was/am under the assumption that we're talking about revenue tickets here.

It is. Even with award tickets DL still prohibits booking tickets you don't intend to keep. Plus it could be seen as attempt to manipulate inventory on a flight.

I would assume that award tickets should be an exception - because they are fully refundable. I'd expect them to cancel overlapping award tickets.

While I know the CoC allows Delta to cancel my revenue tickets, I'd be pretty mad if they cancelled duplicating revenue tickets since you'll pay a fee for changing the flight you didn't take anyways.

So basically nothing happened except wanting to know what ticket you were going to use.
Don't think that would ever deter me from doing it if the need arises.

No it was clear that if no decision was made one or both PNR's would be cancelled. They were looking for a decision.

I abused this a few years ago with multiple bookings over multiple days and they let me choose one flight each day as long as it was possible to make each flight they let me keep these active.

So was there a cancel fee charged on the unused itinerary?