Delta quietly increases change fee to $100 too
Jun 7, 2010, 3:26 pm
#31
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 2
Crazy high change fees on the Delta Shuttle? Fight them.
Change fees on the Delta Shuttle are $100. Totally unfair and unreasonable. In my opinion the Delta Shittle is taking advantage of business travellers who regularly go back and forth on a daily or weekly basis. Sometimes business plans change. Sometimes you have to get home early. I have asked Delta to sell me a refundable ticket on the Delta shuttle. I have asked them to sell me a ticket with an open return. No and no. To avoid the change penalty you have to buy the equivalent of two one-way tickets. About $800. Versus a $500 roundtrip ticket. In my opinion, the change fee is how Delta penalizes their best customers. (By the way, I'm a platinum fflyer) This morning I talked to a guy in a red jacket at the Delta terminal in Boston. He told me I could take the train if I want. Can you believe that? On principle, I think we should all dispute these up-charges. Fight with them> Sometimes you win. In any case, if they want your money, make them work for it.
By the way, the shuttle flies half-full during off-peak hours. This isn't a question of taking a seat out of a fare-class. It isn't even an administrative hassle. What it is is greed.
By the way, the shuttle flies half-full during off-peak hours. This isn't a question of taking a seat out of a fare-class. It isn't even an administrative hassle. What it is is greed.
The problem the airlines see is that it does cost them more than the admin fee to change our "nonrefundable" tickets.
Back when nonrefundables started, they really were nonrefundable. Then, airlines started allowing medical excuses. This snowballed so that lots of folks asked their doctors for excuses to save the money.
So, the airlines came up with the change fee, to take some of the pain out of cancelling and avoid the medical excuse scam. All they give you is credit on a future flight, so at least they keep the revenue.
Problem is, you've emptied a seat set aside for your fare class. The airline computer programs have a pretty good idea of how many seats to keep open for last minute passengers based on historic data. They hold those and don't sell them cheap. But since not many advance purchase fares are cancelled, there's a much smaller data base of info about them, so the ability to predict cancellations is smaller, so airlines are more likely to end up either overbooking or going out with an empty seat when we cancel. Either case costs them money.
Charging us more is a way to make up for this. I don't like to pay it, but charging $100 to change or cancel a "nonchangeable, nonrefundable" ticket is still not a bad deal. And none of us wants to go back to the days of the phony doctor excuses, do we? (OK, maybe the folks who have no compunction about that sort of thing do, but I don't.)
Back when nonrefundables started, they really were nonrefundable. Then, airlines started allowing medical excuses. This snowballed so that lots of folks asked their doctors for excuses to save the money.
So, the airlines came up with the change fee, to take some of the pain out of cancelling and avoid the medical excuse scam. All they give you is credit on a future flight, so at least they keep the revenue.
Problem is, you've emptied a seat set aside for your fare class. The airline computer programs have a pretty good idea of how many seats to keep open for last minute passengers based on historic data. They hold those and don't sell them cheap. But since not many advance purchase fares are cancelled, there's a much smaller data base of info about them, so the ability to predict cancellations is smaller, so airlines are more likely to end up either overbooking or going out with an empty seat when we cancel. Either case costs them money.
Charging us more is a way to make up for this. I don't like to pay it, but charging $100 to change or cancel a "nonchangeable, nonrefundable" ticket is still not a bad deal. And none of us wants to go back to the days of the phony doctor excuses, do we? (OK, maybe the folks who have no compunction about that sort of thing do, but I don't.)
Jun 8, 2010, 10:51 pm
#32
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Bye Delta
Programs: AA EXP, HH Diamond, IHG Plat, Hyatt Plat, Marriott Plat, Nat'l Exec Elite, Avis Presidents Club
Posts: 16,276
Holy dragging ancient threads back to life Batman