Goodbye 24 Hr Courteous Hold
 

It was just announced to reservationists at Delta today that beginning Monday, 18, July Delta will no longer offer a 24 hr courteous hold. They will be joining the ranks of United & others in charging you at the point of contact and then allow you to cancel anytime within 24 hrs. at no charge.

How long until it becomes a cancellation with some of your money back (i.e., without a refund of the booking fees)? :(

If this is true, it is actually better for me in some ways. I make almost all my reservations at delta.com (especially now that there is a fee for using a human). I've been annoyed with the fact that I can't hold a reservation online. Over at continental.com (where I booked to itineraries this weekend to places where I can't get to on Delta without a stopover), I've enjoyed being able to hold a reservation for 24 hours. To hold a reservation for a Delta flight, I've had to pay the booking fee if I do decide to purchase.

With this new policy, I assume that if I book a flight online at delta.com, I can cancel for a refund within 24 hours. Hopefully they'll allow the cancellation online too, but even if they don't, I'm not complaining.

Guess what. They will apparently start this in July 18 and they will automatically charge your card at the time of reservation. So even if you cancel within 24 hours, your funds will be tied up. I am sorry but when we book several people on a given card and have a change of plans for business class tickets this is going to tie up a lot of money in the credit/charge line. And the booking fees will not be refundable.

:td: :td:

I do have to give Delta credit for finding ways to get customers to float them money interest free. That's basically what this does.

Update: the booking fees will apparently be refundable too. But who knows yet.

If I understand the OP correctly, this is yet another change to the new rules that were announced to FTers on June 25th. Here's the link discussing that announcement.

Not really a bad deal. Though I rarely would have trouble with a 'held" ticket, it has been know to happen. And, I think there was usually a problem doing seats/upgrades until it was ACTUALLY ticketed.

With this plan, you KNOW you have the seat if you want it. If you don't, then cancel it.

So what if some money is tied up? For most of us, we do not even have to pay it off for a few weeks. And how much money is DL really getting in interest free money vs the hassles it is causing them?

how are they going to deal with voucher users?

For us, upwards of $70,000 would have been tied up if this was the policy today (presuming this is applicable for international tickets??? ) .... and then another $70,000+ when everyone was booked on a different route to the same country today. Charging and refunding money will be a hassle for Delta, but if they are taking lessons from British Airways, it won't be long before they eat our money at the time of booking and at the time of cancellation/refund -- regardless of the fare paid.

I really don't see what this gets DL except more hassles. I often make a reservation for flights and do not ticket the reservation while I sort out land arrangements etc. If I failed to call and ticket, the reservation would simply disappear. I sure would hate to be trying to get through to reservations to cancel something on some major travel disruption day, like a snowstorm of ATL thinderstorms.

I had the same question. With DL Dollars it has been the rule of thumb that you put your flights on hold and then go to the airport and have it ticketed. Without the courtesy hold this will make things alot more difficult. unless they plan on making all vouchers available for use on the website.

Another "enhancement" that we asked for, no doubt. It would seem that little has changed from the Leo Mullin days.

I just need a single transcon RT to make PM under the new rules. And do you know what? I'm not in the least bit excited or in a hurry to make it happen.

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Don't know if if was full J or not, but in any event we ended up booking away from DL (and to a different city in the same country). Even if the funds from one ticket were applied to another, is there any benefit of having DL book us on another carrier (at that, non-SkyTeam flights which gets us in during the morning rather than at night)? The only thing I can see coming from DL booking us on a non-SkyTeam carrier, if that is possible, is a downside need to try to deal with DL when at an airport they don't fly to/from themselves.

When we go shopping for several people to fly at once, the process is often to put tickets on hold, get an ok from those flying and then purchasing. Sometimes we shop around thereafter at the suggestion of those flying, and the suggestions made involve not flying with DL or a SkyTeam airline.

I am glad to hear you got your $100 cancellation fee back. However, I wonder how many of those $100 cancellation fees DL keeps from unaware customers or those who make a mistake?

The memo that DL reservation supervisors have on this matter may have also covered the use of vouchers and certificates. Call up and ask. A friendly agent won't mind going over the memo with you while over the phone.

Good idea. I actually was on the phone with an agent when I originally read this and I casually asked about this change. She didnt have much info on it at all. She said she had heard something about it but training on it wasnt until later in the month.