pulpfiction78

Hi, first post.. Just last night I happened to achieve Diamond status!!

I have a question about an award trip I just had, however I had to cancel the return leg. Due to a family pet emergency I needed to return home and calling Delta to rebook my return flight was not very helpful (an already expensive award ticket needed more miles, waiting an extra day, and bad seat assignment). I found an Air France Premium Economy return instead that I paid cash for. So, next Tuesday I have a flight from Milan to Seattle that will go unused. According to the Delta rep I spoke to this return flight is lost and nothing I can do about it since I was in the middle of the trip (having completed the outbound).

I see quite a few threads in similar situations but it's still a bit unclear. Some seem to suggest that I can in-fact get these miles deposited back into my account, and now with my Diamond status with no fee.

Any insight or advice, am I SOL or is there something I can say to a Delta rep to get my miles back? Thanks everyone


(PS, Air France Premium Economy seats are some of the strangest configurations I've ever sat in, as in not very comfortable. hah)

flyerCO

If you're within 72 hours of departure, no refund. Sorry, but pet emergency doesn't count as extenuating circumstances.

jrl767

OP said "next Tues" so T-72 would be Sat (in other words, even though OP has returned home, the window on the original ticket is open for about another 36 hrs) ... I'd just change the return to something 6-8 months out, and then hope for a significant enough (>90 min) schedule change in the interim to claim the refund for the unflown portion of the ticket

CPMaverick

As said above, this is correct. You can't refund half the award, but you can rebook it.

If you had booked two one-way awards, you could have refunded it.

pulpfiction78

Thank you for the feedback, everyone.

I called Diamond support and the rep escalated the issue to her team manager and filled out a Refund Application on my behalf. She thought I had a good chance of receiving a portion of the miles back for the award tickets so I will give that a shot. Regardless whether it was only a pet emergency my account shows I paid over $2,000 per person one way ticket when Delta was unable to offer me a quick return, so it should be clear I'm not trying to game their system. I will follow up when I hear back what the decision ends up being, should be within about a week. If I get even a small portion of it back I will be happy.

I must say, for only being Diamond for a few days I am impressed with the level of support received. On my outbound on that same trip - a SEA-JFK leg - had 2 pretty serious issues on the flight (temperature in the 40s, both forward lavatories out of commission for half the flight) which I filed a complaint about, and subsequently received a very apologetic call and 15k miles for the trouble.

pulpfiction78

Update-

I received a 60,000 miles redeposit into my account and about $60 on my CC. It looks like they only credited my seat and not my partners seat for the return trip. All in all, I'm just happy I got some of it back and not having to deal with rescheduling and trying to get lucky on a schedule change down the road.

If I feel energetic I will ask about crediting another 60,000 for my partners seat.

pulpfiction78

I called DM support again for another question and also checked in on this situation. Turns out, they had actually only refunded my partners return but NOT mine! So, they instantly deposited the additional 60,000 miles into my account as well. Sweet! Having been DM for just a few short weeks, I am at least so far really enjoying the excellent level of support.

daloosh

Now that turned out nice! Congrats on your medallion milestone!

DeltaFan4Now

pulpfiction78

Thanks! Two years ago I shifted from a lowly Alaska MVP and started pushing Delta as I was doing a lot more intl. traveling and Delta having great service out of SEA. They've really pushed hard there in the last 5 or so years.

Starting this year I have been doing a lot of back and forth SEA-AMS and noticed that if I book early enough I can get D1 for about 3,000-4,000 USD. Work pays for the C+ ticket and I pay the difference. At first I thought the new Delta Medallion rules were going to be a huge problem for me, but already in April I realized DM would be feasible and that I would be in a smaller DM pool. ^