thebat

flyerCO

No. System will see the double booking and cancel one or both of the reservations.

NoStressHere

Proceed with extreme caution. Could end up costing lots.

Okay.. explain the "Amex Credits" to pay for redeposit fee? What are those?

flyerCO

AMEX gives a yearly credit for airline purchase. I believe $200 or $250 last time I checked . Helps cover some incidental fees.

flyerCO

think we all try to. However sometimes things slip through. My auto correct also sometimes change correctly spelled words to incorrect spellings.

gooselee

It's risky, but you could go ahead and book the 2nd ticket without her SM #, and then add it back after you've cancelled the first ticket.

Though it would still be extremely easy for DL to flag it as the same person since the name, DOB/gender info, and account used for miles purchase are all the same.

It's not a 100% guarantee that DL will find the duplicate and cancel one, but if it's literally the exact same flight, it's at least a 50/50 proposition. Would be less risky if the new booking was at least a different flight on the same day.

TheHorta

Can you book either including or omitting a middle name or initial so there's a difference in how the ticketed name reads, but it won't cause problems when flying?

Often1

DL uses sophisticated anti-fraud software. Anyone who tells you to skip the SM # or drop a middle name or somesuch is basing their advice of 10-year old software.

DL may well cancel one or both tickets. Where are you then?

Doing this is all up to you and your risk tolerance.

thebat

Thanks for all the informative replies. I guess I will hold off on doing anything until the new year and hope that the price decrease doesn't disappear.
I was using speech to text on my tablet, so mistakes are forgivable are they not?

Again thanks to you all and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

gooselee

I did say there was still a risk.

But I've booked myself, using SM# on both bookings, on multiple conflicting flights many times and never had a problem. DL phone agents have even advised me of no need to cancel the conflict since doing so would trigger an unnecessary add/collect. All this despite some FTers advising that the world would end if I did this.

Granted, the only times I have booked myself twice on the exact same flight was in a situation like OP, where a lower fare came up but I didn't want to release my existing booking until the new fare had been secured - and in those cases my double bookings only existed for a few minutes, not days.

Yes, it's all up to OP's risk tolerance. He/she could also call DL and just tell them what he is trying to do, and they could perhaps note a PNR that it will be cancelled by 1/1. Or they can go ahead and book into the new fare but hold reticketing until the change fee add/collect is processed (which OP would call back in to deal with on 1/1).

If someone wanted to pay in person for a change fee, isn't there a way that they can call in for the change, and then have several days after that to go by a ticket counter to pay the fee and finish reticketing?

NoStressHere

Ah... thanks.

MarkCron

Bummer. I was hoping you would book it. So we could have a real time update of how awesome Delta's anti-fraud algorithms are.

VXforever

The anti-fraud is not that strong.

gagajm

Book sil using a slightly diff name. Does she have a middle name, initial, anything? Add it or dont use it... depending on how you booked the first ticket.
Family has same name we use last/first M and last/first all the time and never had anything cancel.

flyerCO

Yes but then it looks at DOB/gender/card used/etc....