MSPeconomist

IIRC these refundable vouchers that some European airlines are offering are refundable upon request after some time has passed. The carriers were fighting to avoid being required to give back money.

For schedule changes etc. OP will be dealing with KLM rather than DL. Day of travel IROPs are always handled by the operating carrier. The KLM ticket might give OP better/earlier options for a cheap upgrade.

I wonder whether the delta.dumb failure was due to the itinerary having all flights operated by KLM, although of course a DL phone agent should have been able to book the flights.

If OP has access to EF, it could be interesting to check the fare rules on the KLM ticket (the receipt should show the fare code) and compare them to the DL fare rules for the fare that the OP was apparently viewing on DL.

flyerCO

As was using multi-city, it could be OP was trying to buy a fare for route DL cant legally sell. Ie a fare between two EU cities. The reservation system doesn't always catch this, allows you to select flights, but then ticketing fails.

MSPeconomist

OP said it was US-EU multicity itinerary.....or do you mean that DL couldn't ticket an intraEU leg on its own fare component as part of a TATL ticket?

flyerCO

IntraEU is what I mean.

Ie

1. SAT-AMS ok
2. AMS-ATH not ok if more than 24 hr stop as it breaks the fare and DL cant sell AMS-ATH standalone.
3. ATH-AMS Not ok as #2
4. AMS-SAT ok

The DL system will let you select flight for number 2/3. However ticketing fails as it's illegal for DL to sell a fare that is essentially "domestic."

MSPeconomist

However, AFAIK 2. and 3. should be OK if your TATL fare allows a stopover, right?

Rambol

That used to be the case around a year ago. The current vouchers are different and can be refunded at any time and are part of their "book with confidence" promotion.

The following is true for all flights with a departure before 31-12-2021 (highlight is added by me):


See also here under the section "decided to postpone your trip?"

flyerCO

Yes. In that case its basically just a really long connection. It's when the fare breaks it causes issues. Unfortunately AFAIK it's not possible to book stopover via. Dl.com.

xliioper

They've restored some functionality to multi-city search recently including the ability to book stopovers. These are VH2T27M2 outbound and VH2T27M3 return fares with an $800 stopover fee. Although you still can't use multi-city to construct routings on a single fare component if it does not permit stopovers (it will force fare breaks and minimum layover times).