ijgordon

The customer care response seems entirely boilerplate which gives me slight pause. Perhaps it does mean that the refunds department still needs to approve it, but I'm still inclined to be optimistic.

jdrtravel

Not for the sake of "I told you so" but just for future reference, I want to point out that it does seem to be DL, not AF, who is responsible to handle the refund. In other words, in this situation, one should work with the ticketing carrier not the operating carrier for service recovery.

flyerCO

Really incorrect. The extra ticket was bought from AF, not DL. While DL did help resolve, DL has zero responsibility for OP purchasing a 2nd ticket from OAL. The ticketing carrier was AF, not DL for the 2nd ticket. Only because of the special relationship with AF/KLM was DL able to issue a refund.

jdrtravel

There was nothing wrong with the extra ticket or how it was handled. The problem was with the DL ticket. AF was supposed to fly that pax on their a/c but it was on a DL ticket, and pax was flying DL for this purpose. AF check in agents were acting as DL check in agents. OP had a 006 ticket and a DL flight number. For the purpose of this situation, there is nothing particularly special about the AF-DL relationship here that would be different than any other codeshare. If you are trying to deal with a ticket problem , except at the airport on the day of travel, you are a customer (and pax) of the airline who sold you the ticket and you deal with them.

flyerCO

If this was DoD, that is how OP should've handled it. However they instead they bought an extra ticket from OAL. Once they did that your advice no longer applies.

DL can't force an OAL to issue a refund. In this case only because it happened to be an AF ticket, and more importantly, only because of the AF/DL relationship was DL able to issue a refund. (DL handles all AF ticketing in US)

If people follow your advice they'll be sadly disappointed when a refund isn't forth coming.

jdrtravel

1) Why do you think that DL does not have agreements in place with other codeshare carriers for such situations?

2) DL can still reimburse the customer regardless of the source of those funds.

3) Also, it's not clear that this is AF's fault. The note that OP shared from customer service seems to indicate that DL did not properly reissue the ticket after a schedule change. ("when schedule change occurred on PNR XXXXX for ticket 006XXXXXXXXX, ticket was not correctly exchanged for involuntary change....")

jdrtravel

From the DL International COC:

RULE 57 DELTA CODESHARE SERVICES
A. Applicability to Codeshare Services
One or more flight segments in your itinerary may be operated by airlines other than Delta pursuant to contractual codeshare arrangements with Delta that allow Delta to sell tickets for travel on flights operated by these carriers (“Delta Codeshare Partners”). If you purchase a Delta ticket, however, your contract of carriage is with Delta regardless of the operating carrier. Delta accepts responsibility for the entirety of the codeshare journey pursuant to this contract of carriage.

Ben1989

Still waiting to hear back from the customer care team.

Additionally, absolutely nothing received in terms of refunds for clothing purchased due to delayed baggage. With that said, it's only been 10 days

flyerCO

This section involves the legalities with codeshares. Regardless of if it's operated by OAL, as long as coded as DL and ticket bought from DL, then the contract for those flights is with DL and not the operating carrier.

OP, should've DoD asked that AF directly contacted DL. It would've been a DL desk staffed by AF agents, but agents that are working on behalf of DL. Agents with direct access to and knowledge of DL systems. Agents who if couldn't fix issue, could've gotten Delta global support on the phone.

Bottom line, a refund is only possible because ticket was purchased from AF AND DL handles AF ticketing/refunds. Main concern is someone reading this thread having same issue and purchasing a ticket from OAL, and expecting it to be refunded. Take out AF and substitute with MU. Most likely would never see a refund.

ijgordon

Refund from MU, I agree, won't happen.
Reimbursement from DL for the MU ticket purchase, definite possibility.