Dad to Rei

Well, let's first say, that the new wife, was more than fine with my bumping us off, it was a joint decision, please, don't make me out to be an ogre. She loves reaping the rewards from my (somewhat limited) knowledge of the Miles/Points game.

She, like me thought that the prospect of flying out the following day in F/BE was well worth the wait of 24 hours. As A Hilton Diamond, I was able to re-book the hotel, and extend our stay in Paris for a night with a single phone call, even on a GLONP. In fact, on that one phone call, I even managed to get us into a Hilton for the night there at the airport, when the Delta agent was incapable of doing so.

I refused to give up my boarding passes for the first flight to JFK until I had BE boarding cards for the following day. That flight to JFK was still on the ground and I had my boarding passes. I am not an idiot, I generally distrust the 'please wait over there, Ill be with you in just a min'.

This gate agent in PHL was fabulous, he did everything correct. Made me feel like a valued customer, even though he knew we were getting a good deal. I was quite simply, his only choice other than an involuntary DB.

I understand that they may oversell a seat, what got to me, was the absolute refusal to do ANYTHING for us there at the gate in Atlanta. They never even tried to negotiate with me for my BE seats, just a 'here are your new COACH boarding cards'. For the correct financial offer, I would have given up those seats, or gone on a later flight, but they were completely unwilling to give up anything. It was like I was bothering them, when the fact was, I did the airline a favor (For a price for sure) the day before. If they had a better yield management computer system, this would not be a problem, as a computer programmer, I say tough. If they cant get the systems to opperate properly this is the gamble they take.

I am now left with a very sour taste in my mouth towards Delta. I did not make them give me that deal. I would have been perfectly happy to get on my origional flight, and have gotten to Paris the day before. They offered me what I asked. Then to not come through with a promise like that. I don't know what to expect from the letter I sent in. I was not even sure what would be appropriate to ask for 'as compensation' for my troubles.

andymo99

You just don't get it, do you? You realize int'l J has a higher no-show rate than Y, right? Why don't you go ask a DL employee who you trust what the authorization numbers are like on international routes. Better yet, give me a flight number and date, and a little while later, I will come back and tell you the number of J seats that are available for sale and the actual J inventory left. Almost always, the former will exceed the latter by 2-3.


Domestic F is generally not overbooked. However, on int'l equipped B/E planes flying domestically, there is sometimes (not always) an overbooking authorization of a few.

Mountain Trader

Delta Purser-

Any thoughts or insights you can share on why Delta leaves 8 premium seats earning no revenue?

DeltaPurser

Actually, at the most (on a 777 with 52 BE seats) they may authorize ONE extra seat. If I pick a flight at random... #22 ATL-CDG on Aug. 22... I get the following numbers: 43/44 (52), meaning the flight has 52 BE seats. 43 are still unsold, but they are authorized to sell 44.

Maybe what happened in this case, or in many others, has to do with the fact that we are reconfiguring our 767's right now. When all is said and done, they will have 10 fewer BE seats than they currently do. Until they know exactly what aircraft will fly the trip (I don't think this is actually nailed down until 48 hours before the flight sometimes), they will only authorize 32 BE seats. If an aircraft that hasn't been modified ends up flying the trip it may all of a sudden show an extra 10 BE seats...

Don't know if this helped clarify anything or just add to the confusion.

DeltaPurser

JS

The last time I volunteered (SLC-SAN) my seat wasn't needed, and I lost my nice window seat and got a crummy window seat over the wing.

For me, that alone is enough to say to heck with volunteering. Waiting until the next day? Never!

rcs85551

Seems like they really cut down on the overbooking authorizations during the summer. Right now however, all those 777 flights get up to THREE extra seats. Just pick a date closer date (like Saturday's DL22 ATL-CDG which is overbooked by 3 in BE), and you'll know what I mean.

Dad to Rei

So, if they regularly over-sell the BE seats, this can not have been a terribly unusual occasion to bump someone out of BE.

The question I still have, is why did no one even attempt to negotiate that bump. They could have pretty easily sweet talked us into it, instead, they involuntarily bumped me down.

Is this the standard reaction when the cabin is overbooked and all of the bookings check in? Do they just pick the three 'lowest on the totem-pole' BE customers, and move them to coach?

Dovster

Under my nom de plume of Josh Wilde, I write satires for two major gambling portals. Personally, I also enjoy going to a casino and risking some money. However, one thing that I always keep in mind: Just as I can win, I can lose.

Overbooking is a result of the airlines' decision to gamble. They could play it safe. They could simply sell all seats on a non-refundable, non-cancellable, basis. That would mean that they would know exactly how many seats had been sold for a particular flight and when it was sold out, that was it. If someone doesn't show up, it is his own loss -- not the airline's.

However, the airlines prefer to gamble. They sell fully refundable tickets at a much higher price. If the passenger shows, the airline has won the gamble -- it has provided the same service and gotten more money. If the passengers doesn't show, the airline loses: it has not sold that seat.

Hence, the airline tries to protect its gamble. It overbooks with the expectation that some passengers will not show. If it has 6 available seats and sells 8 fully refundable tickets at full fare prices, it still wins if two people cancel.

Where can the airline lose? When it overbooks and everyone shows up. In this case, it is only right that the airline -- and not one of the passengers -- pays for the airline's bad bet. If this requires that the airline provide F/C tickets to Paris for the people who agree to take the bump, the airline has no right to later reneg.

Unfortunately, passengers are not in the same position as bookies to make certain that a welsher pays off.

rcs85551

They worked the flight correctly when it comes to who gets on and who does not. Your ticket simply had the least value of all B/E tickets.

They should have asked for volunteers though or at least offered you a different routing IMHO (and this is standard procedure for those at the ATL E concourse that I know personally).

I have also seen them bump B/E pax from DL22 to DL28 in case of an B/E oversale (but Y seats still avaiable) - in order to get those B/E pax out in the class of service they deserve. Dunno what went wrong in your case.

FF_Bello

I have been offered my seat on a very oversold BA flight under the condition of getting onto the first flight the next morning (and asked nicely for an upgrade which I got, too). I did not surrender my bording pass for the evening flight until I had the (upgraded) boarding pass for the next morning. All other arrangements (hotel, allowance, transport, meal) were sorted out at the ticket counter land-side.

Dad to Rei

Just wanted to post an update. Delta did appologize for the way that this was handled. They also compensated me 'fairly' for loosing my seat in Biz for the trip over.

I received that yesterday, and wanted to post, that I had a reasonably good experience with the Delta customer service reps. Though, there internal mail system appears to be VERY slow.

I am happy with the outcome.

Parris/Jasper Dad

care to provide details of your compensation?

Ocn Vw 1K

As someone who has been a frequent VDB on UA, I'm glad that this was finally made right by DL. Without meaning to give legal advice, an airline negotiating with a psgr. for a vol. denied boarding does not give away freebies or make offers gratuitously. At the same time, downline, downgrades can happen due to a variety of reasons. DL should have set up a document system that would have shown its compensation to these VDBs including B/E and if, downline, they needed to be downgraded, they should have either been re-accommodated in B/E or, if they wished to retain their currently sked flights, been given appropriate U/Gs for future flights -- what UA calls a "downgrade kit" given to pax already confirmed in upgraded space. This should not have had to go to central customer service for resolution after the flights.

rcs85551

There is such thing as a "downgrade kit" at DL.

Dad to Rei

They replaced our (4) $200 vouchers for the origional bump with (4) vouchers of significantly more $ value.

Id be curious to know what comes in a standard 'down-grade' kit....