lls138

And that is the other thing....we cannot book open jaws and stopovers online without incurring higher mileage charges.....and so again, we cannot avoid the fees or the loss of the 48 hour hold in these circumstances.

Did a test:
SAN-JFK 3/25 - Skysaver available SAN-ATL-JFK
PHL-SAN 3/28 - Skysaver available PHL-ATL-SAN
Should be 25,000 miles, but is showing the cost of this on Skysaver (not skychoice) to be 45,000

Can they really do these changes and fee changes until they fix their online reservation systems to be as efficient and flexible as the real person?

SkyTeam777

FTers seem to be the only ones clued in these days!

DL needs to stop sending out these worthless emails saying that we can use the online award tool and fix it fast! What a total degradation of the goodwill they spent all these past few months rebuilding with pax.

DebitNM

I did call back and after 45 minutes of talking, holding and finally being through to a supervisor, no go.

I changed the departure city because my original is a small regional airport. The new departure city is 160 miles from original. Supervisor told me that changes of more than 100 miles can't be done without charge. I tried to tell her that it WAS the closest airport to my original departure airport and that I had booked it there because the regional airport went from 2 early morning flights to one and they kept changing the times and as of now it has only 53 minutes connection time.

I was told that connection time in SLC is 4o minutes, so that wouldn't work either.

It appears that I am being punished because I live in a very rural area and the closest airport is over 100 miles away.

No matter, I guess.
Deb

lls138

Called back and spoke with another agent who seemed more knowledgable about the new changes....

Ended up booking TIJ-MEX (Skysaver), MEX-SLC-SAN (Skychoice) for a sum of 40,000 + $58 taxes/fees for what would have been a $500 flight...so not the best deal.

1. First told I cannot make reservations after business hours (I called at 815pm PST). This was later clarified when I explained I was PM and she re-entered my SM#.
2. The 48 hour hold online only rule only applies to fares originating within the US. So international reservations orginiting outside of the US can still have phone holds.
3. Told I still have to pay the $20 phone reservation fee even though I cannot do my reservation online.
4. Told I can confirm and pay for fare online
5. Went to my reservation online and found "Must redeem on or before: March 31, 2008".....so the phone hold for fares originating outside the US is 7 days???? Should I trust this or just book it within the 48 hour window? is this usual for fares originiating outside the US?
6. Taxes/fees were $58 which is more than usual....usually $10 for US flights and the TIJ-MEX route in the past had been $35 RT for award tix. So are there hidden fees (ie. fuel surcharge) or is the phone fee hidden in the $58?
7. Clearly open jaw stil fair game


I am so unclear about why they have made these new restrictive rules???? How does this exactly help DL? Only hurts customer service and appreciation IMHO

Global_Hi_Flyer

To discourage award seats and encourage cash sales. It's like any other company that promises a benefit then makes it so restrictive as to be essentially worthless.

My bet: Delta and the other airlines want to hasten the demise of benefits for frequent flying yest still keep the loyalty of flyers. From my standpoint, a big dilution of benefits causes me to shop on price and service, not loyalty.

lls138

Agreed 100%. All of my purchases in 2009 (once my PM becomes GM) will solely be made on direct flight options and/or price. The loyalty doesn't carry the benefits it once did. Too many headaches and unknowns. Arrghh.....hello US

karthik

I dropped to FO a month ago and came to a similar conclusion; the only thing keeping my loyalty was the 100% GM mileage bonus, which quite often earned enough extra miles to make ticket cost differences worthwhile. I'll end up making FO again for next year anyways (in part due to that 10k MQM "medallion apology"; funny that they send out 10k MQMs due to a minor email error, yet will not properly acknowledge far more major problems), so any loyalty incentive has pretty much disappeared since I'll continue to enjoy some of the best perks of the program much the same as a GM: exit rows, early boarding, SMS, partner status recognition, and the occasional upgrade. I think I'll really only miss the free SDC. The elite security line in BOS was nice too, but apparently it was just replaced by the ski slope system anyways.

Robert Leach

It's clear to me that award usage rules seem to be getting more and more complex at the same time that the airline is trying to, understandably, drive bookings to the website. Now, the airline people think the rules have been simplified (by, for example, allowing a split award where one leg is SkySaver and the other is SkyChoice, or where one leg is coach and the other is first), but the perception on this end is that this has only made things worse -- primarily because of glitches in the website and/or journey control issues.

The problem is that the more complex usage becomes, the harder it is for the (apparently) lone guy in Delta's web design department to keep up with the code.

My suggestion to Jeff Robertson, if he's listening, and Delta would be to simplify, simplify, simplify. Go up on the mileage rates if you must, but keep it simple.

For example, just eliminate roundtrip requirements for awards and publish everything as one-way awards. This eliminates the need to engage the super computer (or the inexperienced phone agent) to calculate open-jaw situations, for one thing, and you stand a decent chance of getting some people to use mileage one way and buy a ticket for the other leg(s). It would also allow people to build circle trips using mileage.

Make a one-way domestic coach SkySaver 15,000 miles and a one-way domestic first class SkySaver 30,000 miles, throw in a free stopover at any connecting point, and I think you would have it.

If you're feeling really nice and generous, keep the $75 fee for changes after ticketing made through the phone, but allow any changes made online to be free.

More than anything, however, the website needs to do what it is advertised as capable of doing, 100% of the time, before you ding people with fees for not using the website.