lewinr

I have an award ticket for July that includes a RT segment in business class on Aeroflot from Toronto to Moscow.

Aeroflot have has cancelled this route, and the itin on the Delta site shows "please call" for these segments.

What is Delta obligated to do in this circumstance?

I called Delta and the agent insisted that they could only rebook me on Aeroflot out of JFK which would be a poor connection requiring an overnight in both directions.

They said there was no availability for seats for miles on DL30/31 which flies the same route. (Checking the Delta site confirmed that Delta is asking 200k miles for those flights).

But in fact those flights on the necessary dates show J9 D9 S9 I9. So I am surprised they could not pull a reward seat from inventory to solve this problem. These DL30/31 would be the ideal solution for my schedule.

So the question is: what is Delta required to do in this situation?

The agent I spoke with said they could not find any award seats available and could only book me on the Aeroflot flight from JFK to SVO which requires an overnight.

Frankly even if there was is overnight I would prefer DL or AF/KL. (And I'm not sure why she said that it is the only option... a quick look at the schedule indicates that should not be the case, unless she is looking only at seats for miles and cannot get me a seat from YYZ->JFK and JFK->SVO on the same day). Aeroflot is not bad and I was happy to take their direct flight from Toronto to Moscow.... but their business class seats are still rather outdated. And DL30/31 should have the new lie-flat seats by this time...

The agent said she spoke with a supervisor and they even could not put me on Air France or another carrier. Does this make sense?

It also seems to me that I had a similar situation 2 years ago... I arrived at the airport and learned that the flight had been cancelled, and they proceeded to re-route me on another flight without any concern for award inventory being available.

Should I push them harder to make inventory available now? Or simply show-up at the airport on the date on my ticket and hope that the airport will have more power to solve this? Or wait to see if they open saver inventory on DL30/31?

Thanks for your advice
Ron

SJC2AUO

Sorry to hear about that Ron. Whenever the airline makes a change without your consent it's always best to take the approach that you've been wronged. Definitely call back and see if you have better luck with another agent. It just doesn't seem right, since the change was beyond your control.

MikeyZBT

I had nearly the exact same thing happen to me and I was told what DL is obligated to do:

I was on LAX-FCO on Alitalia, with Miles, in Biz. Very similar to the OP situation.

That route got cancelled.

DL still would only put me on Alitalia flights when available, so the best they could do was LAX-JFK (on DL) and JFK-FCO (on Alitalia). They wouldn't rebook me on AF or any other set of connections.

JBLUA320

Let us know what happens..

And just for the record, SU's biz on the 763 is now lie flat

3Cforme

They certainly can refund your miles without a redeposit fee and book you on any valid SkyTeam award itinerary at a cost of miles you're willing to pay. No, they can't force AF, KL, SU or others to open award inventory for you. DL can certainly open award inventory on its own planes (and that's probably the best outcome to hope for).

lewinr

thanks for your replies. yes, I'm really just wanting DL to open one seat from its inventory on the flights which in any case show J9 D9 S9 I9...

MikeyZBT

I am sorry, but no. DL will not force open it's own itineraries for you. They did the same thing to me. They would only force the original airline (in your case, aeroflot... in my case, Alitalia) to give you an award seat equivalent to what you had before (cost of miles, class of service). But, they cannot force another airline to do that... or themselves.

In my case, since Alitalia got rid of LAX-FCO, DL got us on LAX-JFK and then forced Alitalia to give us seats on JFK-FCO.

Roamin'Around

If all your attempts to get better flights fail, then request that they provide you with a hotel room for each of the nights that you'll be stranded at JFK (or at whatever airport you'll be layed over)

This happened to friends of mine with South African Airways and they were put up at a nice hotel. Given the state of the world economy, it's unlikely that Delta will oblige, but it doesn't hurt to ask...

Air Brian

I've had this, or something similiar like a schedule change, happen several times and each instance DL booked me on a DL flight. Keep trying, use the partner desk and most importantly, be nice

DlRes

This is the correct procedure.

NoPlaceLikeHome

Same here, on two occasions in the last 18 months. The first one entailed a DL schedule change whereby DL rebooked me on a MUCH better schedule through ATL.

The second one was when I was booked on AF, and DL switched me back to DL.

So, it CAN and SHOULD be done with no silly games by DL regarding, "oh, I am so sorry but no free seats are available even though no or very few seats have been sold on the flights you want to go on".

DL has the partnership with SU, so now it is time for DL to partner with the customer (you) since their partner (SU) failed you. If they have purposefully designed system blocks so that the customer cannot be treated decently, it is time for them to override and then eliminate those system blocks. Whether you are Platinum or toilet paper status in their system is not material. Their system has been designed specifically by them with the intent that what the customer wants is only available 10% to 15% of the time. That success rate will make sense only when that same success rate applies to available paid seats.

This is merely another pointless airline obstacle course that no customer has room for.

It is now time for Delta to have no room for it either.


Anne

woody125

Really? Might it be a 763 from SVO to LAX for me next week? A quick check of Aeroflot.ru says yes it is. Sweeet. Thanks for the heads up. I would have eventually found out but this makes me look forward to it even more!

MikeMpls

Count your blessings. Aeroflot recently tried to railroad passengers into flying with an apparently drunk captain:

Passengers stop flight after 'drunk' pilot sparks panic

In the U.S. he'd be hauled off the plane & tested before you could blink an eye.

Delta flies its own metal to Moscow, so hopefully they can come up with an alternative -- and safer -- routing.

MikeyZBT

Right. It's frustrating because we would have loved to have been changed to a LAX-CDG on AF and then CDG-FCO on AF or AZ, but we HAD to be rebooked on Alitalia if possible.

Oh well, we have a 1 hour 50 minute layover and terminal change from T2/3 to T1 in JFK. Should be 'ok' since the time will be from 3:05pm to 4:55pm on a Saturday.

mizzou miles

Just had the same problem with an AF flight (which only changed times) CDG-DTW.

DL was great. First, they offered a new flight (which did not have skysaver inventory) on our connecting flight to NYC. When I protested that it was a long layover, they called AF and AF protected us on their nonstop CDG-JFK flight. Talk about (for once) a happy outcome.

Anyway, call back, be nice and ask that DL protect you on their own metal. They cant force SU (or AF) to open seats. But they can force inventory after a schedule change on their own flights....

Good luck!