Bergstein

Thank you very much.

sparkygirl

I booked a business class partner award ticket on Vietnam airlines going from LHR to HKG. I was unable to access the seating chart during and after making this booking. I immediately called Delta and asked them to assign them. The agent said she contacted Delta's world department and they are not allowed to access their system or assign seats. I asked her for my confirmation number with Vietnam airlines and she was able to give that to me. I then went to the Vietnam Airline website and it does not recognize the number Delta gave me. Hmmm? First I am surprised Delta has a partner that if anyone uses they will be unable to access the reservation or choose seats. I am not feeling confident that I can rely on this to get me to where I need to be by a certain date? I have gone on partner flights with AA and United and have never experienced this.
Solutions? What am I missing?
PS
I did send an email and used the chat function with Vietnam but still do not know if anything has happened since I cannot access the reservation.

Kremmen

IME, they reply and tell you when they have assigned seats.

RealHJ

Just get the VN PNR from Delta (every agent can see it, if you get a incompetent or just plain lazy agent who refuses to give it you, HUACA until you get someone who will), then go to the VN site and select the seats. Same is true for all SkyTeam airline bookings (though for some like KE, KL, AF, you can select seats on delta.com and those will actually stick - usually).

sparkygirl

sparkygirl

Thanks everyone!!

xliioper

Referenced in another thread -- partner J rates were recently increased from/to Mexico/Caribbean/Central and South America (coach rates look about the same). New one-way award rates with award fare basis codes and mileage amounts are below.

As a reminder, there are no longer separate partner Skymiles award rates to/from US/Canada (except for WS) as they have been harmonized with DL award rates since last Fall (if partners have availability for Skymiles awards, they will just book into lowest DL award level based on fare rule requirements such as advance purchase, roundtrip booking,etc.).

Business
Europe CSM1050 105K
Northern Asia CSM1150 115K
AUS/NZ CSM1200 120K
Southeast Asia CSM1250 125K

Coach
Europe YSM350 35K
AUS/NZ YSM450 45K
Northern Asia YSM550 55K
Southeast Asia YSM550 55K

moonsidian

I booked a SkyMiles award flight from PVG-ICN-TPE on KE and CI. Later I decided I wanted to stay in ICN longer, so I changed the booking to just PVG-ICN. However I'm not sure everything updated all the way. The few thousand miles by which it was cheaper were redeposited to my account immediately, but the eCredit for the taxes/fees difference has not showed up (although it's only $7-8 so I don't care about that amount too much).

Initially, in my account I saw the trip change from PVG-TPE to PVG-ICN, but it has now reverted to PVG-TPE. Prior to changing, I used the KE/CI PNR (which I had to contact DL for as they still don't show it anywhere) to add the trip to the KE and CI apps on my phone, and the ICN-TPE leg on CI still shows up on both of them as well. I'm even still able to change my seat on it via the CI app, but not via the DL app anymore. The updated seat number is then reflected on KE and CI, but DL no longer displays it at all. If I try to change it via DL, it says the seat map is not available. These seat shenanigans with the CI flight are the only difference I've observed.

Would it be safer to just cancel it and rebook? I have enough miles to cover a temporary double booking, just not sure how much DL's cancellation fees are. (Edit: just researched and they seem to be quite hefty for tickets originating outside NA, so I probably want to avoid going that route)

Kremmen

This is utterly untrue. Maybe you should try it sometime before giving incorrect advice?
I booked one recently and it's still necessary to email VN for seat selection.

sparkygirl

I need to respond to my experience and how it all ended. I could not get access to my Delta mile redemption flight on Vietnam. I did the chat with Vietnam Airlines and they could not help me. I then called Delta and they could not choose seats or give me the VN number to access Vietnam Airlines reservation system. I then contacted Delta via email through their help center. Here is the response from Delta:

"Thank you for your prompt response. You will have to call Vietnam Airlines with the confirmation number. ( ######) I am a supervisor here in Corporate Customer Care and I assure you, I have exhausted all possible resources to ensure that I handled your case properly. I know you are disappointed, but I have gone over this experience again and I am sorry we aren’t able to resolve this matter to your satisfaction. We would have much preferred to please you, and I’m sorry. We do appreciate your persistence, but we will have to agree that we cannot find the right solution this time. Any further communication would not be productive, and we will not respond again regarding this incident."

I did not feel comfortable having a reservation with an airline that I cannot access their system or get alerts, etc. I have canceled this flight and went with United airlines where I did not have issues. I am so disappointed that Delta has such limited partners and one of them does not allow access into their system! United requires half the miles for business than Delta. Hmmmm might be time to change??? Just my experience and thoughts

Kremmen

If you aren't prepared to have a partner reservation without being able to access it via the web, you want to avoid Vietnam Airlines, Bamboo Airways and various other Asian carriers. Knocks out some of the best value award redemptions. Delta does have very few partners and mostly poor value redemptions, but VN between Australia and Europe for 90k in business each way is one of the exceptions. I've drained my DL account doing those so if I ever accumulate enough SkyPesos for an award again, it'll probably only be within North America.

happiest_at_40000

Just wondering is DL like AA where if I call in I can mix and match partner award flights. I am needing to go from HKG to HND/NRT and on my day it�s just China Airlines w a stop in Taipei of course. I would love to maximize the layover and there is availability on both the outbound I want and the 2nd flight but none of the DL options show those 2 flights together as a pair.

I�d like to take the late morning flight to Taipei and then the late morning the next day. It around a 20 hour layover.

Thanks

RealHJ

No problem, any int'l connection <24 hours is fine. And you can have up to 8 different SkyTeam/partner airlines on a single record (as 8 segments is the maximum that will ticket, on two tickets under one PNR).

About CI/TPE connections, DL website and reservations system is unable to display most connections in TPE properly. You need to tell the agents step by step how to build it and make it show. You need to tell the Delta res agent to use Award Shopping tab and input your origin and destination, and also to add the connection city (TPE). Then they MUST click on More Options and then SkyMiles/Direct Access, then Find. If they leave out these integral steps (Delta does not train its agents on how to actually do their work, so 99.9% likely they will leave it out if you don't teach them how to do their job), then it won't work and the TPE connection flights won't show (or it may only show a few but not all the options).

happiest_at_40000

Wow. Thank you. But nevermind me saying on AA thread how their agents are the worst and why only half of them can add a short haul connector flight to an exisitng partner award.... The DL agent just told me flat out that what I wanted cant be done and that the 24 hour rule doesnt even exist with DL. She quoted me 60K for what I wanted, meaning she was doing it as 2 separate tickets which is ridiculous.

The flight out of HKG that I want is avail but tied into a few flights out of TPE but not the one I want. The one I want from TPE is there also on a few options but not tied with the HKG flight I want. All I'm trying to do is get a whole day and night in Taipei. I'd love to get the TSA-HND CI flight which now I am guessing based on what you said I can get as long as I teach the employee how to do their job. Landing at HND as well as flying out of TSA would both be so much more convenient.

The agent btw said she would do a multi city bookin and then came back asking for 60K for the business award. I guess I am going to do the HUCA BS I have to do with AA but with them I dont have to explain the system to do stuff, just have to hope to get a good agent.

Is there any way I can do what I want online by manipulating the system or it must be done with a phone rep? It seems like DL has many new agents who are clueless. I had some problems with other things with them 6 months ago. I recall their wait times early on in Covid were amongst the worst around and they hired many new agents to combat this if I am not mistaken... Maybe they were not trained well.

One interesting thing was the agent had a CX ticket available in J to sell me should I not want to use miles. I was wondering how can DL sell a OW airline ticket?

Thank you for explaining the steps. I will call back later.

flyerCO

Airlines can sell tickets on any airline that have a ticket agreement with. However they usually only do it for close partners. Exception when markets like this without a lot of close partner flights.