MChang1

Wife and I booked a trip to Alaska this June coming back and staying in Seattle for a few days on the way home. I booked first class seats as early as it would let me to make sure I got what I wanted. The outgoing flight was through MSP with a 3 hour layover and this was fine with us. I would rather have a longer layover than too short in the afternoons. Delta has changed this flight so many times, now we are flying through Detroit with a 58 min layover. At this point, even if I wanted to change the flight, there isn't much left on the other flights. Then yesterday they changed our return flight from Seattle. We booked a direct flight leaving at 10 am getting in @ 5pm. Delta cancelled the direct flight and changed our flight to leave a 6:20 am and traveling through ATL arriving at 6pm. Since it is so close to travel time and there are no direct flights now at all and the others with decent departure times are booked. So being proactive paying for first class seats accomplishes nothing with Delta and I am guessing with other airlines as well. I cancelled the Seattle flight and went with Alaska Airlines who does show a direct flight.

Since we are retired, I am to the point, I may stop flying and just drive where I need to go and take as many days as it takes. To frustrating since it takes hours to call someone or hours to use their fast chat service.

Brian

findark

As a general rule, booking extremely early carries no benefits other than numerous schedule changes, and is frequently more expensive than booking 21-90 days out for domestic travel. This is indeed true for all airlines.

Schedule changes are no fun, but you do get a lot of flexibility to take from what is left every time you are impacted by one. Again, not really a Delta issue - common to all carriers.

jrl767

be advised that AS isn't a shining example of schedule change recovery either ... and it's often even more challenging with their limited east/west network where many destinations only have 1, maybe 2 daily flights to the SEA hub

ATOBTTR

Anecdotal but that was my experience with UA on an itinerary. Last fall I booked an itinerary of LIH-HNL-SFO//overnight at SFO//SFO-CMH nonstop that left SFO at 10:00 AM and got into CMH around 6:00 PM. The SFO-CMH nonstop was yanked from the schedule and I was rebooked SFO-ORD-CMH and my two options were 1) leave SFO way early or 2) get into CMH way late. It was a shame because I had what I considered a great itinerary (a good departure time from Hawaii that got into SFO early enough to allow a decently long overnight layover followed by what was to me a great departure time from SFO and a great arrival time into CMH). I was able to get UA to rebook me via HNL on an LIH-HNL-IAD-CMH itinerary but even that got screwed up 30 days before departure when HA shifted the schedules on their island hopper flights and UA was unable to reticket me on a comparable LIH-HNL segment that connected me to the HNL-IAD-CMH portion I had, so I ended up just getting LIH-DEN-CMH. Not as ideal because it meant less time to sleep and also meant going from a 1-1-1 767-300 with Polaris to a 2-2 757 (at least it did have lie-flats).

And while I ended up booking UA at the time because they were the better option when I booked, I continued to play with options (especially after schedule changes in both directions) I noticed AA also had schedule changes on the options I could have taken as well. I don't think they were quite as impactful. In fact, I think in my case - had the AA schedule been what it eventually was when I originally booked, I may have gone with AA over UA, but I'm sure that change that might have benefited me was not beneficial to others.

But that's the reality of air travel today. COVID resulted in a lot of schedule cuts and although domestically we appear to be almost through the woods in terms of the pandemic as things start to return to "normal", the industry is still slow to recover, especially for international travel. That's going to mean reshuffling of fleets and schedules as airlines try to keep planes (and crew) flying and balancing the operations. And rising fuel prices along with other world events are going to possibly mean many more route cuts (or further delays to resumption of cut-services).

Even with these changes, I still feel that the flexibility one gains from schedule changes has made me come out "ahead" in this game, especially with the reduction of change fees where even if I book early and the fare drops, I can rebook for an e-credit refund on the fare difference. And if the fare has gone up for a preferred flight but there has also been a schedule change on my current flight, I can still use the schedule change to get to the new preferred flight without paying the fare difference. A win-win to me.

xliioper

Sounds like OP got hit by the IND/MKE-SEA route cancellations for the summer this past weekend. Unfortunately, the auto-rebooker doesn't always make sane choices. There were almost certainly better options open for June through MSP that didn't involve a double-connect through DTW and returning through ATL (June is far enough out that there should still be a fair number of seats open).

bitterproffit

Its much worse with Delta and much harder to fix with Delta IMO. Especially since they can't seem to answer a phone call within 3 hours. And they often won't let you change it on the website.

I experienced the same situation as the original poster, it got so bad and the flights were so messed up, I just canceled and got a credit to my credit card and used someone else.

This IS really a Delta issue in that they seem to be the worst about it, and the hardest to get ahold of to fix.

Eastbay1K

Then you haven't been dealing with AS this past year - some changes / cancelations with less than a week's notice, causing potential forced overnight layovers from what used to be a nonstop flight.

As I've always said, sometimes the grass isn't greener over there. Sometimes it is dead.

bitterproffit

I've never dealt with or flown AS in my life. Doesn't sound like I would want to start anytime soon. But, my experience last year was that of all the airline trips I took with MULTIPLE AIRLINES, Delta had, by far, the most changes, the most nonsensical changes (non stops to one stops even though non stops still existed) and were, by far, the most difficult to reach to fix the bad changes. It got so bad with one trip that I just gave up and cancelled.

Step 1: Make a change that makes no sense
Step 2: Make it so that you can't use the website to fix it.
Step 3: Put you on hold, and while you wait, remind you every 3 minutes that you should be doing all this on the website (even though you can't).

Even JetBlue was easier to get a hold of!

findark

Or United in normal days, where you certainly cannot do anything with the word "change" easily on their website.

The standard experience IMO is you call for a positive space rebooking that you researched ahead of time. This has been the norm for me at DL and other airlines, without issue beyond the fact that when nonstops get dropped from the schedule it's simply hopeless to have as good of a replacement.

Adam1222

a 58-minute domestic connection in DTW is more than doable. While it might not be your ideal, as others have said, that's the risk when booking a flight in advance. Based on operational statistics, a 58-min connection on DL in DTW is more comfortable than a 2-hour connection on other airlines at other hubs.
I'm not sure what paying for first class has to do with it. Paying for first class means you will be rebooked in first class.

EarlVolFan

I feel the OP's pain - I have several trips, many international, booked through October this year. Several have had schedule changes, and even though I have access to the Special Members Services line as a Diamond, it has been easier to reschedule through the website than ever - you can even change you arrival/departure dates up to 2 days for no additional charge!

Give it a try - I used to always have to call to 'fix' schedule changes, but so far in the last several months, I've been able to do it myself.

Keyser

Have over a dozen upcoming reservation over the next few months & 9 of them were impacted by the schedule changes over the weekend. I am unable to reschedule anything through the website. Every time I try, the website tells me to call as modifying the flights online is not an option.

EBiafore99

IMO, travelers need to shift their thinking about the advantages of booking early - i.e., getting the schedule they want, seat(s) they want, etc. The airline industry has been in a state of flux since COVID began. The "light at the end of the tunnel" that was being touted earlier this year has now been replaced with a war in Ukraine and soaring fuel prices. Oh yeah, let's add staffing shortages to the list.

You can blame whomever you want, but it doesn't change the fact that the issues above exist, and the airlines need to respond accordingly. The bottom line is you need to build flexibility into your airline travel these days. Like it or not, planning trips where the flight arrives "exactly" when you need it to is a recipe for disaster and disappointment.

bitterproffit

I don't think its overoptimistically realistic to expect them to be able to answer the phone.

And the 'they all do it so just deal with it' scenario would make more sense if 'they all' made as many changes as Delta has or has been as hard to reach as Delta has.

Over the past 2 years, my experience is that Delta has had the most changes of all the airlines I've used AND have been the most difficult to get a hold of.

You can apologize and make excuses for whoever you want, but it doesn't change the fact that the issues with Delta exist. The bottom line is I have built flexibility into which airline I chose to do business with.

IMO, there is no harm in asking companies to be easier to deal with.

Goodoldflyer

Sure, that's fair.

But someone who books 10-15 trips over the next year, and expects every trip to go exactly as originally arranged or better probably isn't being realistic.

People are sometimes willing to spend 2-3 hours on the phone to get their trip exactly right. There are people who will call back 5 times trying to get their complimentary upgrade on one flight transferred to another. Multiply that by some percentage of the number of passengers traveling, and you can see why an airline can't fully accommodate that.