tomtaylor23

I have a flight from JFK booked for next month, the 7am flight is $250 cheaper than the original one I want at 11:30am. Has anyone ever booked multiple flights to the same destination, and then cancelled the flight they did not want if they could not SDC? Would Delta take recourse against me if I decided to do this?

Pianoman109876

Delta may see that you have a reservation that is impossible to keep and cancel one of them (or both).

Mountain Explorer

Extremely unlikely. Unless OP has a pattern of doing this every week, DL has better things to do.

Mr. Tickets

Don't count on that. They are getting very good at this and I know people that have been caught. It is automated, not something they have to do manually

indufan

That isn't the point. Automation finds them.

sydneyracquelle

Don’t do it. DL called me and made me choose one of the two flights and it was the first and only time I had ever done this.

flyerCO

Possible they catch duplicate impossible flight reservations. However more importantly, even once cancelled the flight will show you had a reservation on it and cancelled. The flight will of course also show your booking where you moved on to it. Thus will be very easy for DL to show you purposefully booked flights without intention of flying one.. This is what gets people in trouble, not the fact they simply booked two flights, but that did it with intent.

This scheme is why a number of airlines stopped allowing mileage upgrades within X hours/days of departure. People were booking seats never intending to fly, canceling at last minute and then upgrading to now empty seat.

nd2010

If they were smart about it, they would book a seat in someone else’s name and then cancel it. All you need is a name and birthday for someone else.
There are people who would legitimately book two flights within hours of each other. A business traveler who doesn’t know when their meeting would end and needs to be at the destination ASAP. Would be cheaper to book two flights in advance than a last minute walk up fare or hoping to stand by.

flyerCO

While makes less traceable as to who, it still has effect of hurting revenue.

nineworldseries

It's not that there aren't completely legitimate reasons to do it, it's that carriers hate it because it could... sob... possibly cost them some revenue

RealHJ

Other airlines (UA, for example) run a sweep and automatically cancel the latest booking(s) that are overlapping any existing flights. Even across continents and timezones. Anything that is impossible.

DL, at least previously, hasn't had such an automated sweep (daily or otherwise). But, it's likely to come up and be flagged for human review. You don't want your account to be locked for audit or what not. If you book multiple flights but only intend to make one (even the same one-way two or more days in a row, not exactly overlapping but quite clearly not feasible to fly all as booked), just let DL know - right away, proactively - why you have it so booked and by when you intend to cancel the duplicate res, and they should notate your PNRs accordingly, so when it gets flagged for manual review there are notes/explanation as to why it's so. That is, if you get a helpful and understanding agent...which is a coin-toss nowadays. AND if you have a legitimate reason for doing so, and it's a one-off and not a pattern of such behavior on the account.

flyerCO

Do not let them know. This is like comitting a crime, leaving no evidence and then calling police and saying i did it. They couldn't prove anything before, but can now.

RealHJ

They could easily prove it, as the records and tickets are right there. And it 99% likely comes up in a flagged report of dubious bookings for manual review anyway.

This is one of things that DL is good about, (if you are lucky to reach a good agent - or just call the CS and not the reservations number) to give you a bit of flexibility if there is "good reason" for it. Only time I had to do something like that, I had a good cause. I explained it to DL. DL notated the records not to cancel the tickets (including a waiver of the then-still-in-effect 72 hour advance award cancellation requirement, as I would only have a few hours notice at most) and all was good.

With UA, no go. I tried. Several times. Due to covid uncertainty had two different bookings, in two different continents, around the same time. Basically booking two separate trips, knowing that I'll be lucky if I can make one of the two, not knowing the future covid travel restrictions du jour in each region/country, with the intent to cancel the other one (or both) a few weeks before when there is more certainty. No UA agent or CS had a way to stop the automatic auto-cancel of the later booked ticket that happens every 24 hours at a set time. After rebooking the cancelled one a few times day in and day out, gave up, on UA FTers advice.

So, giving credit where credit is due, things like this DL is better than others about.

What you are saying would be applicable if one does a fake booking in their dog's name or something that they intend to cancel just an hour before flight, in the hopes of securing a GUC upgrade or something. Such bogus bookings could be much harder to trace, and possibly untracable. That is type of conduct that obviously is not, and should not be, condoned.

flyerCO

I agree in principal, contacting DL is right thing to do. The problem is despite any promise by reservation agent, you're violating the contract with DL. Even if they decided to not come down on you, they could to the agent that assisted you.

I think a fee might be the answer. You pay it thus ensuring DL isn't totally screwed when you finally cancel one ticket. Increases/decreases depending how close to departure you need to keep the 2nd reservation.

Zwiebelbauer

It's ridiculous though when they decide to cancel the 11:30am flight, putting you on the (much cheaper at the time of booking) 7am flight anyway