If she was to misconnect due to wx, she's not entitled to any compensation for her expenses. Was she scheduled on DL 1711? That left over an hour late, but still in time to connect to the last DEN flight (though the connection would not have worked had the BDL-CVG flight not made good time and if the CVG-DEN flight had not been a few minutes delayed).

She should have gotten on BDL-CVG and dealt with the potential misconnect there. Better to get part way to the destination.

It seems that the language barrier made communication very difficult, but that is not DL's fault.

If she was bumped she would be entitled to compensation and probably could still insist on getting the involuntary (cash) compensation even thohgh she signed for voluntary compensation or went away empty handed for lack of understanding of English.

If, due to lack of understanding of English, she left the airport and didn't come back at the appropriate moment, or she failed to execute instructions that would have gotten her to her destination more timely, the airline would have a case not to compensate her for this part of the inconvenience.

She and a translater (you?) can pursue the problem with reasonable quickness at the destination (where you are).

Travel tips:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/travel.htm

I also was thinking along the same lines. How much do you owe Delta for bumping your mother-in-law so she can't come and visit. Actually I like my mother-in-law. I hope I'm not in the minority about that since people always seem to make jokes about men and their mothers-in-law.

Delta domestic VDB compensation?
 

Hey.... I have a flight coming up later this week, YUL-CVG-LAS-ATL-YUL.

Both the CVG-LAS, and LAS-ATL flights are sold out according to KVS and Delta seat maps. I know there's multiple flights b/w these cities every day so being put in the next one won't be a good deal....

If I ask to be put on the VDB list at check-in, if chosen what kind of compensation does Delta give on a route like this? Or can they just put me on the next flight and give me nothing?

Thanks for any help!

-mike

They will offer you a voucher for so many Delta Dollars and tell you what flight you will be put on later. Occasionally they tell you that you have to stand by but if so the voucher should be larger.

You then decide whether you want to be put on the VDB list.

They cannot simply bump you to the next flight paying nothing if they offered something at first and you volunteered in response.

Travel tips:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/travel.htm

Got a VDB tonight (I'm typing this in the hotel room that Delta's paying for...). Anyway, here is the compensation that I got:

$400 Delta Dollars
Free night's hotel (for tonight)
$14 in meal vouchers
Guarenteed seat on first ATL-GSO flight of the day (I would have been confirmed into F, but the flight was already full in F, so I've got an exit row...)

Not looking forward to waking up in 4 hours though...

Usually it's $200 or $400. Always $400 if overnight. The $200 is more if they can get you out within a couple hours. You'll get hotel and meals if they are needed.

I've actually gotten $200 and arrived before my orignal flight. Can't beat that deal with a stick!

Deleted

Question about Involumtary Denied Boarding Compensation
 

Here's a situation a colleague ran into last weekend. My personal opinion is that Delta did not compensate her appropriately, but I was wondering what others thought.

She purchased a roundtrip ticket from Washington, DC to Brazil. She boarded her fly at DCA but when she arrived in ATL, she was advised the connecting flight to Brazil was overbooked by 25 people. She was also told that DL could not get her to her destination for an additional two days.

Since she was traveling to a meeting and would miss the two most important sessions, and since her trip would have been shortened from 5 days to 3 days, she saw no point in waiting in ATL for two days and told DL she wanted to go back to DCA and requested a refund for her ticket, in addition to the $400 voucher she was given for the involumtary denied boarding.

The agent booked her on a flight back to DCA but told her he would only refund $775 even though the ticket cost $1288. He told her DL was only responsible for refunding the "international" part of her ticket.

She was ticketed on a single ticket from DCA to GIG on a single through-fare with no stopovers in ATL in either direction. Since DL was willing to give her a refund, admitting that it was their fault that they could not get her to her destination in a timely manner, it seems as if they should have given her a full refund for the ticket. Her roundtrip between DCA and ATL was useless to her.

Do you agree that she is entitled to a full refund? If so, what is her recourse at this point? Thanks.

Her big mistake was in accepting that bull. Between Delta, Varig, Continental, and AA there are sufficient daily itineraries to get her to GIG -- they certainly won't all be sold out (especially not in Biz).

Even if she paid for a Coach seat, it is Delta's responsibility to get her to her destination as close as possible to her scheduled arrival time -- on any airline, in any class, and with whatever connections are necessary.

I personally believe that she is entitled to a full refund.

She missed her meeting. She needlessly flew round-trip between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta. She wasted her time as a direct result of Delta Air Lines. She was inconvenienced.

A US$400.00 voucher does not cover the remaining US$513.00 which Delta Air Lines does not want to refund to her. I am unsure as to what class of service her round-trip flights were between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, but I guarantee you that she was in coach class (as a round-trip flight to Brazil from the United States for US$1,288.00 would not pay for business class), and — while it is certainly not impossible to do so — I have never paid US$513.00 to fly in coach class between Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

Delta Air Lines could have contacted her before she started out on her journey and informed her that her flight to Brazil was overbooked. However, even if they could not do this until the last minute, she deserves the refund simply because she took a wasted round trip to Atlanta from Washington, D.C.

I assume she flew back to Washington, D.C. immediately and did not stay in Atlanta overnight. Among other things, this would prove that the flight was useless to her.

She should begin by contacting Delta Air Lines via e-mail with a detailed description of the situation. If the resulting response is not to her satisfaction, she should escalate it to a telephone call to Customer Service and speak to a supervisor. If that fails, escalate it to contact a Corporate Officer. In other words, she should keep trying until she receives satisfaction.

Please keep us informed and let us know the outcome, JerryFF.

Not only did they not advise her the flight out of ATL was overbooked, when she checked in at DCA, the agent gave her only the boarding pass for DCA-ATL, told her she would need to pick up her international BP in ATL but didn't explain why and never mentioned anything about the flight being overbooked. Thanks for the link and the advice.

First, since she was unvoluntarily denied boarding, she would have qualified for cash compensation. It's not just a DL$ 400 voucher, but rather 400 USD in cash. From what's written here, she was not advised of that, hence Delta is in violation of the DOT policies.

Point that out when writing to DL, and tell them to exchange the DL$ 400 voucher against USD 400 cash OR a higher amount in vouchers.

Also, she is entitled to a full refund of the fare.

Do you volunteer or wait for DL to ask for VDBs
 

since the last post was over a year ago I figured I'd see what the current recommendation is:

I've got a U seat on tonight's 11:59 SLC - JFK flight (#1664).

When i arrived at SLC an hour ago I asked the terminal booking agent if the flight was oversold and she said "Yes by 8 seats"

So iirc, the best offer should be $400 in DD but do I stand a better chance of scoring this and a F seat out later if I volunteer or if i wait for them to start asking for volunteers?