Overbooked TATL
 

I'm due to fly in a month LAS-ATL LGW and today got a call from someone who said "Hello my name is XXXX and I'm calling from the United States" No mention of company-she asked for me by name and proceeded to tell me that my ATL LGW was overbooked and would I like to fly into Heathrow instead "Um no not really".
I suggested I might consider flying the following day but she informed me that flights the day before AND the day after were overbooked too ! I suggested we left the flight as it was and commented the flight must be VERY overbooked if they were asking Golds to change flights a month out.

An email then arrived with my current flights listed and I noticed the LAS ATL was now nearly two hours earlier-a schedule change she hadn't bothered to tell me about.

Highly unimpressed at this point and considering she hadn't even claimed to be from Delta I called DL back. Yes the flight is overbooked by 65 seats , No it IS unusual to try and shift Golds so far out.

All in all I'm pretty unimpressed with DL (my experiences thus far have all been good-even with misconnects) I'm guessing my chances of a bump or upgrade now are pretty good but it does seem an odd way to treat elites.

I hope she didn't neglect to ask you if you needed a car or hotel at your destination!

I'd actually say that it's nice to proactively contact elite pax to see if they wanted to fly out of LHR (may be easier for some).

It sounds like the communication was a bit odd, but I'm not sure it is such an odd way of treating elites, at least regarding calling about the switch. What would be odd to me would be capriciously switching an elite, but I would kind of hope that they would offer the chance to switch to elites before non-elites. Sure, you didn't want to switch, but I'm sure there are some that would and elites should be the first to get the offer.

There's a possibility they may have offered you LHR thinking they might be doing you a favor since LHR has traditionally been favored by business travellers.

Indeed some do. Not me though I live SE of London and switched flying TATL from AA to DL because of the better LGW frequency.
I'd actually think elites are more likely to KNOW what they want and be less likely to want to change as experienced travellers so if they'd wanted the horror that is Heathrow they'd have booked it in the first place though :)

Oh and no car or hotel offer tsk

At least they seemed to be proactive. Sure the communication and scheduling could have been better, but at least they called....

Now if DL would do something like this - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...rd-travel.html

Its only Monday but I nominate this as BEST POST OF THE WEEK.

MisterNice

What was the fare difference between LHR and LGW at the time you made the reservation?
They may have thought you reserved LGW for a lower fare and that they were doing you a favor.

Bear in mind, some people (like me) will make routing compromises if they yield significant enough savings.

Happy Travels
DLP

Y'all do understand that connecting to Hilton/Hertz etc... helps each of the agents out, right?

I wonder how they screwed up and managed to overbook by that much. Must have to do cuts or something but that seems a bit odd to me

Now it would have been interesting to find out which fare class they would have rebooked you into. Had it been a Y, you would earn 1.5 MQM and Miles. You might also be able to upgrade using miles if that was something you might want to do.

That said, if you live in SE London, LGW is ideal.

I actually didn't know that but the very few times I have allowed myself to be connected for the fun of it (for a car) the rate was way more than I could get on my own. No need to waste their or my time, no matter if it helps them or not (I assume by "helps" you mean some sort of financial kickback). I wish the airlines would concentrate on the airline business and not this referral stuff/acting like a travel agent/etc. Maybe their airline business would improve!

Still, though, if the agent went above and beyond, it's an easy, nice way to recognize that.