Converting roundtrip to one-way with miles
 

Apologies if this has been asked recently, but the most recent thread I could find on this was from 2014.

I booked a roundtrip using miles. Now I need to cancel the outbound flight but keep the return flight. I've tried calling and chatting and texting with their support and each time it takes forever and I don't make any progress. Delta's representatives don't seem to know how to do it. They keep transferring me to someone else. Now they're telling me that I won't get any miles back if I cancel the outbound flight, which seems ridiculous.

Does anyone know what the actual policy is and how I should handle this? Thanks in advance.

For a trip that hasn't started, you can cancel and redeposit the entire award and then rebook the one-way flight as a standalone at current mileage levels. It's the same thing that would happen if you had booked a roundtrip revenue fare. Note that there are award levels that require roundtrip bookings (with higher levels required for one-way award bookings). Letting one keep a one-way award after booking a roundtrip in such cases would defeat the roundtrip booking requirement for these award levels. Although this doesn't apply in your case, once travel on a roundtrip award booking has begun, you can't redeposit the return award (even if they are one-way award levels).

Thanks. This seems like an extremely customer-unfriendly policy. If I had booked it as two one-ways, it would have cost 10% more and I could cancel freely, but as a roundtrip I have to forfeit everything? That seems pretty dumb.

How are you forfeiting everything? You will get all your miles back after cancelling (they no longer charge the $150 redeposit fee that used to apply for those with less than Plat status) and can then reuse them for the one-way award booking. Since you apparently booked an award with a roundtrip booking requirement to save miles, why should they let you keep half the award if you no longer meet that roundtrip booking requirement? It's no different than booking a revenue fare with a roundtrip booking requirement and then expecting to get a credit for half of it when you cancel one direction and you no longer meet the roundtrip booking requirement. I believe all the other majors have the same policy (if you go on WN board, you will see they always recommend booking trips as one-way's for this reason).

They should give you the one-way at the rate it was selling on the day it was booked. That's how Southwest does it.

Why? Would defeat the whole purpose if having RT requirement. You bought a ticket that cost less each way due to RT. Now expect that they just let you jeep it but without fulfilling the requirements of the fare.

Also are you sure WN does that?? WN has always AFAIK repriced ticket for voluntary changes.. Finally, AFAIK all airlines reprice the whole ticket when you change outbound.

That's why I said the remaining leg should be priced at what it cost the day you book it.

I'm certain Southwest refunds whatever legs you cancel - it takes 10 seconds.

Emotionally, we all wish we could go back in time to change some decisions. Hard to do without a Tardis. :)

Unfortunately, we have to live in the present and sometimes take a little penalty for changing our minds.

Unless something changed, all WN fares are OW fares. A RT ticket is simply 2 OW fares booked on one ticket, there's no RT requirement. However if you buy a RT ticket, and only want to take return you have to change the ticket. You end up with new OW ticket and ecredit equal to cost of the outbound fare. However, this is because the fare for the return is a OW fare, no RT requirement.

If you had bought 2 OW fares from DL your argument would be sound. However DL sold you a RT required fare. Thus without a RT it's no longer valid fare for your travels. A new fare must be purchased.

This is why I book a lot of my DL (personal) flights as one ways, especially if I know I may want to make a change. Many times I pay a little more upfront, sometimes not.

I hope OP understands that skipping the outbound flight will result in the entire award ticket being cancelled, so that it wouldn't be possible to use the return portion (even with no refund of miles).