Often1

Bottom line here is that OP should jump on the research project and have the flights he wants ready to feed to a DL agent. Easy enough to check for D1 availability.

AF/KL J is another story. While DL may request the space, it can't force it.

ijgordon

Eh, technically it could help explain what happened.
But it should have no bearing on the service recovery. The ticket re-issue is a back end process, and if DL screwed that up, DL needs to fix it. Period.

And no, the OP is NOT going to get into Air France F / La Premiere. But I agree with most others - just find an itinerary/routing, preferably on DL, but I suppose AF/KL would be okay, that has business class seats available for sale. Same flight a day earlier/later. Different flights on same day. Whatever. And push them to book you into that.

tma90

TL;DR - It took 6 different attempts but finally found someone who wanted to work the problem with me and I ended up with a far more favorable itinerary (and an extra day in Europe) than my original. I learned a lot along the way from your replies and used that to my advantage.

Sorry everyone - apparently I could only make 5 posts in 24 hours. I also capped out of PMs and couldn't edit my posts so I've just been reading all of your great suggestions and questions. Per FlyerTalk customer service, until you have 10 posts this limit is in place. Oh well...the more you know. Fortunately I have a positive resolution to share..

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED..
After 5 failed attempts ("sorry no flights available", "best we can do is waitlist you", "can you fly on Christmas?", etc.) on twitter and with phone reps, I made a final call late last night to domestic reservations again where fortunately their notes from my prior calls spared me a back-and-forth. He immediately spoke to a supervisor and was cleared to book me a flight from JFK to AMS (with 20% off a rental car to get to JFK ). Timing on this flight was not ideal so I decided to push my luck.

My ideal itinerary from the very beginning was into CDG and out of AMS (there was no upgrade available to CDG at original booking) so I requested that. He told me that it was impossible because AMS has no alternate stations, whereas JFK is an alternate station for BOS so that was easy. He also said this should be treated as a "schedule change" (wrong) so he was limited by those rules. I pushed for the supervisor again and they transferred me to international reservations.

This is where I struck gold. Unlike all of the other agents, this international reservation agent immediately understood Delta's screwup and simply asked me to describe my ideal itinerary so he could "get creative and make it right". While my companion is starting the trip from the BOS area, I am starting in CHS and had already planned on repositioning to BOS before the trip as many of you guessed. We also both needed to get from BOS to CHS after the trip but had not yet purchased those repositioning flights either.

Armed with that information the agent said he could turn our two BOS-AMS tickets into a CHS-JFK-CDG outbound and AMS-ATL-CHS return for me and a BOS-JFK-CDG outbound and AMS-ATL-CHS return for my companion. To take that option I would need to pay $600 total for the new CHS-JFK leg and the two ATL-CHS legs at main cabin prices. However, the entire reservation would be DeltaOne/First Class with bags transferred end to end.

I obviously was planning to protest spending even $1 on fixing the problem they created but his ability to use $600 to get me to JFK for the outbound and re-route us through ATL (not an alternate station to JFK obviously) to CHS seemed like a steal. As a kicker he asked if I wanted to push the return back one day from 01/03 to 01/04 and I was all for taking that. Now we're both confirmed in Delta One (J) fare for JFK-CDG and AMS-ATL plus domestic First Class (O) for the 3 new legs.

SO HOW DID IT HAPPEN?
Short answer is I'm still not certain since none of the representatives could tell me how I got bumped out of the seat. One agent was reading notes on his screen under his breath and I heard him say something about "removed by Elite Sales & Services" but that's all I heard. However, based on many of your questions I did some digging and want to share all the data I could find about the history of my reservation so that another flyer might learn from the experience:

I booked flights on 10/20/2019 and received my "Delta Reservation Itinerary" email which listed both passengers with "Delta One (O)" on both legs with assigned seats in Delta One that I confirmed in my app and on My Trips on Delta.com.

What I didn't bother to look at until researching yesterday was my Flight Receipt that came 6 minutes later. The receipt showed fare classes of U and L respectively and showed no seats selected. Again, I had already been on both the app and the website to confirm my seats at this point and continued to do so with no issues over the next month (kept checking for different DeltaOne seats). My understanding from reading some of your replies is that I should have received a subsequent receipt once the tickets were officially re-issued.

Then, when I received the downgrade email on 12/03 I logged in and saw the following:

• my seats were (W) and (OY) and my companion was still (OY) on both
• all 4 of my GUCs were in my wallet as "OPEN" - I can't be 100% sure but I thought they had "CLOSED" after we booked initially
• I had a new receipt in my wallet dated 12/03 reflecting the changes from (U) and (L) to (W) and (OY)
• my companion also had a new receipt dated 12/03 showing changes from (U) and (L) to (OY) for both.

You all can tell me but it sounds like the agent at booking did not re-issue the tickets after using the GUCs and that may have contributed to or created this mistake? Does it sound like a process wasn't followed or that some sort of glitch occurred? Some of you are pointing out that you can call back in to ticketing and request that they be re-issued.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. Several of you have suggested it is critical to follow-up and ensure that the tickets are re-issued properly after an upgrade. I never had an issue with this when I received complementary upgrades as a Diamond but I think that has to be a valuable lesson for myself and others using GUCs without much experience.
2. Sure I've seen "hang up and call back" posted on forum after forum and know that it is typically a great strategy to follow. This experience really hammered that home for me. The extreme variance in responses I got from different agents along the way has taught me to do my homework ahead of time so I know what the correct answers should and shouldn't be. The very reason I posted here in a panic is because my first outreach to Delta resulted in "we're sorry but no flights are available to move you to".
3. No - you're definitely not getting that Air France F class...the international agent confirmed to me that they have absolutely no ability to overbook/force on AF. He said even if it did show upgrade space availability, the GUC would only get me a 1 class upgrade from the fare I purchased so at best I would be in the "premium cabin".

WillBarrett_68

whooaaaah.... this would imply you could only go to PS from Y if the flight is so equipped.

PV_Premier

the agent was referring to AF metal, not DL metal... and it's correct, a GUC will take you from Y to PE, or from PE to J, but not from Y to J on AF. Further, I believe a full fare or nearly full fare Y ticket is needed to upgrade from Y to PE.

williwaw

tma90 what a saga - thanks for coming back and sharing the details!

MSPeconomist

Yes, and well done! Enjoy the trip, although it's too bad that it required so much time (and frustration) to fix something that shouldn't have happened.

The removal by Elite Sales and Services makes me wonder whether you were moved for a 360 wanting to buy a J fare, but it's a dirty trick IMO and should have been graciously fixed immediately.

Paying an extra $600 for the positioning flights (all on the same ticket/PNR) and getting them in FC seems like a nice deal as I would guess that separate coach tickets would have cost about this amount.

Congrats on a good outcome in the end.

rucksack

OP- glad that you finally got this resolved to your satisfaction.

A few comments for educational purposes:

• It's unfortunate that it was as difficult as it was to get your issue resolved, but not at all surprising. Your situation combined two of the most complex and poorly understood issues for agents: international reissue and upgrade certificates.
• As you learned, the fact that your ticket was never reissued was the primary reason it was so difficult to get your problem resolved. To explain why, you have to understand the difference between reservations and tickets. Most people think of reservations and tickets as interchangeable, but they're actually separate concepts that work hand-in-hand. A reservation is assignment of space (or inventory) in a cabin. A ticket is payment for that space. When you buy a Main Cabin (Y) fare and "confirm" an upgrade to Business class (J), your reservation is actually being modified from holding space in Y to space in J. An upgrade certificate is a form of payment that is redeemed in exchange for a J ticket – this is why you GUC remains open until your ticket is reissued. Holding a J ticket entitles you to a seat in J, which is why it's easy to get rebooked in J when a schedule change or downgrade happen. However, if your Y ticket was never reissued as a J ticket and your reservation is downgraded from J to Y (which can happen for a number of reasons from equipment swaps to schedule changes), you're stuck holding a reservation for Y and a ticket for Y. I completely agree it's poor customer service to not honor the upgrade regardless of whether the ticket was reissued, but I wanted to explain why not having the ticket reissued is technically problematic.
• While it's true that using a GUC on an AF flight requires a high fare class and only upgrades you to the next highest class of service on the flight (which may be premium economy), these rules are only applicable for tickets that have not yet been reissued in the upgraded class of service. Once you have a ticket reissued in J, it is possible to get rebooked on codeshare partner flights in some circumstances. For example, I've upgraded flights on Delta metal and then subsequently been rebooked in J on flights operated by Virgin, Air France, and KLM due to schedule changes and IRROPS despite not meeting the original requirements for upgrading, nor there being upgrade inventory available.

tma90

This is well put and I do get this concept now but from a UI/UX perspective they sure do make this difficult to understand until you've either read up on it or experienced it yourself. At time of booking I asked questions such as "did the GUCs go through?" and "is there anything else I need to do with this reservation?" and was assured that all was well. Then you login and see your seats in Delta One and you think you're home free.

I am curious what the standard operating procedure for ticket re-issuing is. Should the initial booking agent have re-issued that ticket on day of purchase? Should it have been automatically re-issued a number of days from there? Or is it typical to leave it open until very close to departure in order to maintain flexibility with the GUC in the case of a change as some posters have indicated?

btonkid12345

Yes, if someone else was paying full fare because this was their preferred routing, and DL was getting all that cash, they should have made it easy for OP to switch to any other DL metal (at least) in J on or around the same dates. DL wanted the full fare and to downgrade OP, which is weird.

I agree on the price and coach tickets being a fair deal, albeit confused how the international segments booked into J class yet the paid domestic fares added on booked into O.

My guess is the agent documented the reservation to rebook the international and there was no upgrade space, so just grabbed J space.

Waived change fees and added separate fares in for the domestic flights. These might have even been paid First fares that were highly discounted. This was the add/collect amount quoted to OP and further justifies the agent’s change and notes.

Finally booked the domestic flights in O class because again, it was available and there was an add/collect to justify it. Done and done.

This is similar to when I lost my promised J seat on a VDB. Took multiple calls to find someone who knew how to correctly honor what should have been done in the first place, but eventually it was taken care of. I am so happy it worked out for OP especially with turning it into an open jaw!

Robert Leach

My experience, having done this dozens of times, is that the ticket NEVER gets reissued. The agent who books it will typically tell you that it will go into a queue and be processed a few days before departure, but I have never found that to happen. Typically, I call in about 3 days out and get them to reissue the ticket (which often takes about 15 minutes on the phone). The process is clumsy at best.

I do understand delaying the reissue for a while so that the GUC doesn't reflect as used/closed, since it takes a herculean effort to reuse a closed GUC if flights somehow have to change. However, from a bean counter perspective, it makes no sense to force your customers to tie up agent time manually reissuing the ticket. I just don't see anything good that comes from that.

ijgordon

Well I think it was probably more intuitive back in the days before etickets.
But still -- it was 1996, heading with a buddy to Europe post-graduation on Pakistan International Airways (JFK-AMS[-KHI]) with a (paper) ticket bought from Student Travel Agency (or something, pretty sure it was STA). At check-in, he (and others, but not myself) find out they don't have the reservations. But they have paper tickets, hand-written IIRC, with the flight info. Eventually they got everyone on the flight. And fortunately we stopped at the Paris STA office to check on his return, because there was apparently a problem with that too (on Tower Air ). So the opposite problem. Fun times.

SFTNYC

How can one tell if one's ticket has been properly reissued after a GUC/RUC upgrade "clears"? If I pull up the flight receipt (not the reservation) from reading the above and it says Class: OY am I good? Status of the segment still shows Open but I believe it stays open until you actually fly the ticket? Certificates still show open but I think it's the same concept - not closed until actually flown?

Poster #56 makes a point about manual reissue - I've definitely had that experience before over the phone but don't recall how the receipt changes or having it happen in every instance...

Thanks all!

angra

If the ticket has been reissued, the ticket number will be different from the original one when you booked the ticket.

tma90

Didn't really think about this until now but I guess I get the 200% MQM bonus on the J fares now right? That brings me to another question...what is it supposed to be when using a GUC? OY or J?