mellowg

I tried booking this one-way flight over the phone with Delta

SEA-SLC-IAH-SJC ($158)

with the last segment DL-coded, CO-operated. Found on ITA.

I called 7 times, and even talked to a guy who had been working there for 20 years. He said that if a codeshare flight doesn't come up when they type in the origin and destination cities, they can't book it. So, if they have to manually select a codeshare flight as a connection, it won't let them book it. Is this true?

I've been successful booking a couple of MRs that I found with ITA on NW. It took a few calls, but eventually they figured it out. But I just completely failed with this Delta flight.

Can anyone tell me why this happened? Is it my fault? Or Delta's? And can people give any tips from experience about how to book strange itn's over the phone, particularly with DL?

The MR sticky just says to keep calling, but I probably could have made 100 more calls, and would have gotten nowhere. Needless to say, I didn't try.

Any help would be appreciated.

--Frustrated as hell

OutOfOffice

Funny you posted this. I found a NW operated, DL codeshare from SFO-MSP-TPA on both ITA & Orbitz. It priced out no problem on Orbitz but I wanted to redeem a Delta trasportation voucher. The reservation agent I spoke with who obviously knew what she was doing could not find the codeshare at all.

So I don't think it's anything you did, I would be curious if anyone has any insight why the DL res agents might not be able to "see" these codeshare flights?.

civicmon

Watch out for DL, they have a revenue-management thing and are VERY tight about MRs and are NOT MR friendly unlike NW which just cares about the fact it gets the cash.

there was a thread here a while back that had to do with a MR'r who was hassled at the airport for his connections.

fzwinter

When I've had difficulty booking a MR with the airline, I've taken the ITA itinerary (with the fare codes) to my TA and she's been able to ticket things for me on the spot. I pay a $20 booking fee but also get a discount so things work out pretty well.

925

I don't ever call an airline for help booking a MR. And I've never figured out travel agents either.

Try another booking engine. Travelocity. Orbitz. Even aa.com. Assuming Delta.com doesn't work for you.

mellowg

Well, I gave up on the outbond SEA-SJC. But I still want the inbound flight:

SJC-IAH-SLC-SEA for $158 one-way - B fare

There's availability on ITA every day in June.

SJC-IAH is DL-coded, CO-operated. The other 2 segments are DL.

Can somebody find a booking engine that will allow me to purchase? I know I'm stumped...

925

Exactly what dates and times and flight numbers do you want?

keithguy

If you want to try the phone (I wouldn't), you can try getting the agent to book you SEA-SLC-IAH and then something like ATL-IAH-SJC with the IAH-SJC that you want, then get the agent to try and delete the ATL-IAH segment. It sometimes works with other airlines' systems.

As for booking online, Expedia shows routings via IAH for SFO-SLC and OAK-SLC. I don't suppose either of those would work? If so, just book it as SFO-SLC, SLC-SEA using multiple destinations.

There is a third way - to use flyaow.com's CWT ITN search, enter SJC to SLC, with your preferred time, and then SLC to SEA. Select Delta as the Preferred Airline, sort by Departure time. Hit Search.

Obviously, this won't show the IAH connection, so you'd need to tweak it, go to the address bar (where the web address is typed in), scroll to the end, you should see among the numerous parameters, near the end, "...&air_avail=5&..."

Change the 5, to say 100 to increase the results returned. Hit Go/Enter to get ITN to search again. This should show SJC-IAH-SLC flights. You can select and book from that CWT ITN site.

Hope this helps. If you are still having troubles, post your dates/flights...

bigbrownboy

Slick tip...thanks!

925

Without dates/times, I'm not going to check... but I would expect most any multi-city option with dates and times and airports set appropriately would come up right away.

mellowg

June 5th

SJC-IAH - DL2964 (CO 1092) - 6:30a-12:28p
IAH-SLC - DL1895 - 3:37p-5:50p
SLC-SEA - DL542 - 7:00p-8:06p

Total: $158 all in B class (gets 150% EQM with WP if oper. by DL)

I can't get the DL codeshare to show up anywhere...tried Expedia, Travelocity, Delta (phone, web and timetables). I can only get it to show up on ITA when forcing a connection through IAH. If I try to do multi-city on ITA, the cheap fare doesn't show up, it only works with one-way or r/t searches.

Then again, I'm new at this, so it's most likely something I'm doing....

Also, here's a (complete) snippet from the routing for SJC-SEA on DL:

I'm only able to get 2 connection with ITA while keeping the same fare. Any experts know how to get MRY, SBA, SMX, PDX in there, while keeping the routing through IAH intact?

Faremetrics says this is the best:
SJC-MRY-SBA-LAX-SLC-HOU-PDX-SEA ::: 5644 miles

It seems feasible, but I just don't know where to go after checking ITA...

MikeMpls

Coaxing DL codeshares operated by NW to come up can be tricky. It seems to work best for me when I specify a different routing (usually in a multicity itinerary) for which the codeshare can be one of 2-3 segments, e.g. I specify MSP-ATL and one of the options is MSP-MEM-ATL (where MSP-MEM and sometimes both segments is NW-operated codeshare), or I specify STL-ATL and one of my choices is STL-MEM-ATL (which includes codeshares).

It probably is better not to call DL for anything involving 4+ segments in one direction, since that is a red flag for their revenuers. Direct such calls to Expedia or Travelocity.

I've booked DL tickets with NW-operated codeshares thru delta.com (once) and expedia.com (twice). All three tickets were 3 segments in each direction (6 total), but they are normal trips (2-3 day stayovers) that have been "mileage extended".

timid_trnchcoat

You'll need to check the Delta timetable to make sure the flights are still operated. A published routing might often have relics of discontinued routes and basically you can narrow down your choices in this regard to just starting with SJC-LAX. Similarly, per the timetable again, there are no DL codeshares on PDX-SEA route. Furthermore, if crediting to NW, DL codeshare flights operated by American Eagle may not even qualify for miles.

keithguy

Go to: http://flyaow.com/classcwtmulti.htm

Enter SJC to SLC for leg 1 Depart Jun 5 6am
Enter SLC to SEA for leg 2 Depart Jun 5 7pm

Select Delta, sort by Departure Time. Click Search.

Change air_avail so that it =100 (instead of 5). Choose your flights it comes to $158.09 after taxes plus $10 booking fee.

mellowg

keithguy,

what a great tip, and a simple concise explanation to go along with it!

now, if I could only figure out how to book this using a Delta voucher (sorry to make things more complicated...)

Maybe if I tell Delta I was unable purchase it from their website or over the phone, they will accept the voucher after I purchase it on ITN?