Qs on Delta gift card usage
 

I hope some readers of the forum can answer these questions -

It starts with a letter dated 12/09/22 from Delta I received yesterday - it informs me that I have a $50 GC issued in 2017 that would soon be turned over to State's unclaimed property if I do not reply to Delta by signed, dated and mailing back the notice that I am the owner / purchaser and request Delta NOT to turn over the Gift Card to the State Unclaimed Property Dept.
The letter further states that it will take 3 months for the State records to reflect this. Then I will claim it from the State.

The letter claims this is Final Notice. The thing is, I have NEVER received ANY notice from Delta on its Gift Cards.

I currently have several $50 Delta eGiftCards from the old days when it was a credit card benefit to receive $50 value from spending at Delta. I remember Delta can only use 3 giftcards at a ticket purchase online.

My questions are

1) When you book a Delta ticket using the giftcards as partial payment then cancel the ticket within the 24 hours grace period, the payments by giftcards will go back to giftcards, right? Those giftcards will then have a new issuance dates, correct?

2) Do you get back the total value paid by gift cards to ONE eGiftCard, or they go back to the Original GiftCards, i.e. those $50 ones?

This Delta letter prompts me to check the AA giftcards I have, even older than Delta's - AA check balance site shows they are ALL alive and well. Why Delta wants to turn it over to the State? Hope this become the breakage?

1)No, original date still applies
2)No. Goes back as was applied

The law requires they turn over to the state unclaimed/ unused funds division after certain periods. Has nothing to do with breakage.

I can't be sure without seeing it, but this smells like a scam letter to me.

It's well documented on here. Not a scam, this is complying with the law.

Then why neither AA nor UA does the same thing? I have AA egiftcards that are older than the DL's but they are still good and alive on AA side.

Also the post below contradicts your "No" answers. The poster received eCredit back for the whole ticket value versus what you claimed.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/34517845-post65.html

Actually it is not, based on this thread I just found.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...-property.html

For the majority of the posters, they can NOT find their "properties" that are being turned over to their State Unclaimed Property Dept even after Months have passed (the letter said it needs 3 months for the records to show up in State's database).

There is ONLY ONE success case reported in the above thread that the claimant was able to claim his $200 DL property plus $14.40 interest, from Montana.

It is all for the breakage because once DL turns this over, DL can then remove the value from its book versus carrying it.

AA and UA do not have such practice, fwiw. And they are not afraid for non-compliance.

Obviously there are fine prints in the property categories. Because I have Retailer's gift cards that are older than 5 years - they are deactivated by the retailers but NEVER are turned over. A few phone calls get those cards reactivated and just usable as brand new.

DL chose to remove the liability from its book. How the accounting is done, who knows. I suspect there must be some advantages for DL to go thru the motion to "meet the compliance" while its competitors do not.

Depends on state the funds are considered held in. Each state has different rules. As long as you contact them/have activity on the account, they generally don't need to turn over.

Also if you read that post, it has nothing to do with what you asked. You asked about returning within free cancel period. The post you quote simply stated they got an ecredit when cancel 3 days later, outside free cancel. Of course you'll have an ecredit for full amount, but funds now will expire one year from date of purchase.

What is the difference when you cancel the ticket and still get back the FULL value of your ticket WITHOUT penalty, versus cancelling within 24 hours? Both do not carry penalty, right? The “penalty” is the one year validity from the ticket purchase date ir we can view it this way. Then the process could be repeated and get the same result…. hence no real difference from the cancellation within 24 hours. You just need to “float” a few bucks credit card payment portion. Or if you don’t mind to lose a few bucks find a fare just under the sum of 3 GCs you intend to use.

Nonetheless, this “final” notice I got as the first time I receive any notice from Delta, has January 13th deadline to reach DL’s outsourced processing center. So I would mail the notice back early next week. Then I can check after the “deadline” whether the GC still shows up at DL side. I expect to receive 2 more such notices in coming days as I check the email folder there are 2 more cards bought in Jan 2018. The one got the notice was bought in Nov 2017. FL’s inactivity period is 5 years. I am debating whether to let these go to the state then go thru the somewhat cumbersome process (fill out claim form and send it back with proof of ownership) to just get Real Money back from the state, like this poster has done.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/34790336-post71.html

it actually might be a better solution given we hardly fly domestically.

The ecredit will expire in one year, regardless how many times you reissue it. It's an unused eticket. After one year when expires, you lose the money.

Note, I did some researching. A lot of states now exempt GC from laws on abandoned/ unclaimed property. Thus why AA/UA might have no issue. Also not sure if 3rd party is involved, adding to complexity.

This process is called "escheatment" and indeed, each state has its own rules.
I work for an insurance company and when checks we issued for claims don't get cashed after a year, we try to hunt down the owner to reissue. After some period of time, the funds get transferred to the State, in my case, Florida.
By turning the funds over to the applicable State, the money is no longer a liability to the issuer.

The last sentence is the essence why Delta is doing it.

No, they do it because the law requires it. Otherwise they would simply expire the funds and keep it.

It's only become a liability if person wants to redeem it. If they don't know they have funds, DL can earn interest on it/gets interest free loan.

Actually, I know in the case of my employer insurance company, it remains a liability the entire time until the funds are eschated. Occasionally we'll have someone call us to say they've found a uncashed check from years ago that had been lost and forgotten about and can we reissue it. There is a process that takes several days for us to pull the money back from the State (unescheat the funds) and once we have the money back, then can reissue the recipient a fresh check. I'm sure in the case of an airline the money is still kept in a liability ledger and it's not earning the airline any interest. It's a liability regardless of someone asking for the money. It appears Delta wants to get the liability off their books by escheating the funds.

Maybe they changed it, but I believe you can use up to 5 now?

When you buy a flight online that states "cancel for full e-credit" as a feature, you can effectively get everything back on 1 e-credit that resets the clock and lasts 1 year.

From my other thread...
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...gift-card.html