cathammer

Have a November ATL to JFK to FCO main cabin awards ticket that I need to change because of a cruise cancellation. I would like to book a different date on a direct ATL-FCO flight that requires more miles.

Is the best way to do this to cancel the existing ticket and rebook, or try to get to customer service?
Are there any glitches or gotchas to watch out for in doing this? Their maze of current ticket rules seem to indicate the possibility that I can only "change" a ticket, but will lose the value (miles?) if I cancel it.
If I can cancel & keep miles, how long should it take for miles to show back in account?

Thanks,
C

flyerCO

Just click modify. If more miles needed, they'll be deducted. If less, refunded. There's no gotcha or maze of rules going on here. No change fees as long as ticket starts in N. America.

cathammer

When I click "Modify Flights", I get (hope the link works) THIS LINK

Which shows these two options:

(1)
Change Flight

Reasons why we are unable to complete your flight changes online:

• You may have a Basic Economy ticket
• You may have a Group or Convention booking
• You may have requested an upgrade which requires a certificate/miles
• Your ticket was issued by another airline
• You may be traveling with an infant in arms
• Your reservation may require manual handling

For inquiries click the “Message Us” button on the Need Help page or call Reservations at 800-221-1212 (Domestic) / 800-241-4141 (International).

(2)
Cancel Flight

No longer able to take your flight(s)? You can easily cancel your trip.
START FLIGHT CANCELLATION (a clickable link on page)


I'd like to just do it online, but don't want to get part way through option 2 and suddenly find the ticket and the miles cancelled.
I guess I could go with option 1, put in a call, and wait for the call back for "manual handling". None of the other noted conditions apply, unless the "other airline" is in play because the JFK-FCO leg is on Alitalia metal).

gooselee

This is an instance where it's worth calling, despite the hold times. A phone agent will be able to make the change in a few minutes with (most likely) no issues. Just use the callback function and plan for the wait, but it's worth it to get the change done properly.

cathammer

Yeah, I'll probably do that in the morning, if a human doesn't pick up soon on the chat function, where I've been on hold for a while. I used that successfully a while back to get this record and my wife's linked (we had to book separately, neither of us had enough miles to get the two tickets on the same reservation). Come to think of it, maybe the system seeing the linked tickets is what's throwing a wrench into the works in this case. Who knows?

cathammer

Called this morning at about 8:30, system offered call-back & said wait time was about 46 minutes.
An hour later, no call-back. Called again and system recognized the number and said that I could keep my place in line and call back time was now about 48 minutes, press any number to accept. I did.
Two hour later, I called again and it didn't even offer a call-back option or note that I had an existing one, just said wait time was 5 hours and six minutes, and put me on hold.
Tried again about 30 minutes later and got the same thing.

Delta's system is apparently really crap or broken or both.

flyerCO

However Ed was quoted as saying only have hour long waits at most.

MSPeconomist

I called the DM line yesterday at about 2 pm (Central time) and after taking my FF number and recognizing me, the system offered me a callback in eleven hours. I opted to hold to see how bad it would really be and an agent came on the line in about 20 minutes. Then I spent a lot of time on hold while the agent went back and forth with a supervisor or something in order to achieve what should have been a very simple process that I couldn't do online (fully refunding a ticket within 24 hours); it was an award ticket with a RUC upgrade and I wanted to make sure I got the RUC back.

flyerCO

Never had it that far off. However I've also noticed that quoted time normally bears little resemblance to actual callback wait time.