exwannabe

This is an excellent idea that benefits both DL and customers.

DL benefits for several, albeit small, reasons. The main is that they are more likely to keep your trip. W/o this, people might book ConAir as a backup. Also, a slight advantage to having cash on the books (offset by Air Liability, but once they go book negative that helps the liquidity ratios).

And certainly customer friendly.

Hello DL.

MSPeconomist

DL would need to totally recalibrate their predictive modeling for no shows. If the rule were to change, by how much should DL overbook particular flights in various cabins? In the interim, DL might have to pay a lot to volunteers or people who are forced to fly next to an occupied middle seat.

exwannabe

I suspect their predictive modeling is a total mess right now anyway, Even post the "new wold order" travel patterns have been rapidly changing.

And I doubt the percent of such double bookings will be very high. The ability to book and change for free is likely significantly more of a load factor issue.

Lomapaseo

I can only guess at the answers of why for either event
For the gateway city without a visible connecting fare I guessed that they knew from my Passport info etc. I was coming from the East coast, plus they had a nearly full first class to Asia. Of course they would have honored my reservation, but worried about me canceling on my own and going with a through fare on my favorite airline.

In the challenge in the first class lounge, again they knew the passport info and that I had not checked in through their ticket counter. Again suspecting that I would have chosen a through fare on their tickets.

Similar experience on a round-the-world first class where I broke he original carrier's flights on the leg JFK-LHR-BKK-SYD-LAX-JFK to go with Thai to BKK.. In that case they held me up for a half hour during check in to audit the fare basis since they probably never saw a ticket written that way at the LHR ticket counter.

Qwkynuf

Not saying that you're wrong, but I find this logic bizarre. During "normal" times, I fly from cities I don't live in/don't match my passport info nearly every week. I piece together multiple one-ways to make round-the-horn multi-city trips. Sometimes on multiple carriers. Sometimes I buy one-ways day of flight. sometimes I will book open-jaws with one carrier and fill the missing leg with one from another. I have even booked 2 flights on the same day with different carriers and intentionally no-showed for one, depending on my need. I fly to one city, rent a car to drive to another city, and fly home out of there.

In all of those, no one has ever called me or questioned my choices. Maybe I'm not special enough.

LondonElite

Your passport information provides no real clue to where you are at any point in time. And even if it did, lounge agents wouldn’t and couldn’t go through the effort that you describe.

mattp1987

Anecdotally, I've found AA much more proactive in cancelling overlapping bookings than DL. I can't remember DL ever cancelling a duplicate booking on me at all, but AA will do so even when putting two awards on hold that aren't yet ticketed. That said, I haven't done it many times, and it was against the CoC when I did. DL would have been within their rights to cancel my tickets.

tardyturtle

Agreed. I've been in many situations where the rental car agency did not have a car for me (or more specifically, they did not have the type of car I wanted/needed) because of how their booking and inventory management system works. In cases where they don't have a car, they are usually able to give you something else that is acceptable (or in one case we waited until a load of cars was delivered). There's not really an equivalent mechanism in the airline business--except for, I guess, moving you to a different cabin of service or rebooking you onto an alternate flight. Not sure folks would be OK with that happening all the time.

NYC Flyer

Delta (really any carrier) would prefer you cancel and rebook the other at the prevailing (ideally higher, close-in) fare rather than hold several speculative bookings.

Certainly when loads improve, the impact of no-penalty changes will have a meaningful impact on overbooking analysis. My expectation is that eventually the price difference between "Basic Economy" and "Main Cabin" will accomodate the opportunity cost associated with speculative bookings. Right now, for the most part, there is just no pricing power and real concern about no-shows (Delta doesn't even require you to cancel your reservation before departure right now).

AA has indeed historically been more agressive in implelmenting technology to identify duplicate and ficticious bookings through all booking channels.

M60_to_LGA

Anyone try this recently? I'm thinking of doing the same thing and want to be sure I don't get into trouble. Have a trip booked already for the summer but thinking I might need a Plan B and have a potential work-related reason to go somewhere completely different. But obviously if I'm going to end up losing both tickets, that's a non-starter.

chengcheng2

Did this last Dec, got a call from Delta the next day asking which to cancel.

sydneyracquelle

I just remove my ff number from one or both reservations. You can always add it back on prior to checkin.

Mr. Tickets

Probably won’t work. They can match TSA names and birthdays that you have to provide. Go ahead, give it a shot and let us know.