The issue remains that if DL can use the excuse of ATC/weather delay to strand you in a distant city and tell you that you cannot be booked to fly home, unless you buy an expensive walk-up one way ticket, then the value of your miles is not just worthless -- by using the miles you have actually LOST a great deal of money. All of this discussion of miles-earning credit cards vs. grocery-cashback credit cards vs. hotel programs completely misses the point of the Original Post. If my hotel program suddenly decides mid vacation that I don't have a room, big deal, I can stay in a hostel or a tent or a B&B or any number of choices that are actually cheaper and more of a travel experience anyway. But if I'm stranded halfway across the world and the airline suddenly decides to cancel the flight I'm on and refuse to put me on another unless I pay again, then it would have been far, far, far better if I'd never participated in that program to begin with. This happening once could wipe out the entire lifetime savings from being in that program.

Let me be clear: I'm worried about paying for my trip upfront with miles plus taxes/fees, as I have already paid for several trips upcoming on DL, then being stranded as this person describes and being told that I will not be transported home. In that case, yes, the miles are not just "b.s." they would truly be a scam used to cheat me out of a lot of money.

Apparently, this poster is not the only person to report this experience. THAT'S the issue. The other stuff is trivia. Let's get back to finding out if we have any legal rights in this situation. If we don't, the OP is correct, and you would have to be an idiot to earn/redeem on DL because the risk of being stranded at certain destinations could easily wipe out a year or more worth of savings by participating in the loyalty program in the first place.

Any airline employee can make a one time mistake but if this is a recurring issue on DL, then it needs to be discussed and fixed ASAP, in my humble view. The airport is not a place where a person can raise their voice, stomp their feet, and demand a supervisor. You may get the supervisor if you ask nicely, or you may get threatened with arrest because the person who doesn't want you speaking with their supervisor pretends not to like your tone. We all know the score. You can ask to speak with a higher-up, and you can suddenly meet with an attitude or a threat. We've all seen it happen. So we need to know our rights in advance. At least the number of someone we can call ourselves, on our own phone. Something!

Why pay interest at all? CC use already allows several weeks' float time. Pay off the balance before the due date @:-)

While that used to be the case years ago, modern CC have substantially shortened the amount of time you have to pay. A frequent traveler out of country may not be able to pay before interest accrues. One of the reasons why I can rarely use my CC and pretty much stick to the debit card if I have foreign travel coming up.

But again this is not the real issue. This is a side distraction from the real issue raised in the OP.

You can (and I have) logged onto my credit card accounts on the internet and paid them while spending time abroad. For example, I registered my AMEX cards, and I can log onto the AMEX site, and pay those cards out of my bank account at any time, day or night, so long as I have internet access.

Therefore, I guess I don't really see the problem you raise as being a significant impediment. Certainly not one that would prevent me from earning all the FF miles I earn through CC usage.

YOU are absolutely right and yes we have been veering off course, but the stuff we are talking about provides valid background information on the make up of these very programs. ie, the stuff that proves or disproves the validity of FF programs as a whole.

I think they are a sham and basically we are LUCKY when things DO work out. Kinda like some corrupt thrid-world immigration officer quietly accepting cahs to let your visa suddnely get you in or out of their corrupt country (see Indonesia, as one example for more on that one!)

So where DO you get the real lowdown and what do you bring with you to the airport to present as armed proof that your ticket is supposed to work for this flilght?

Do we call DL, ask for some higher up in mileage, get themto send a letter saying THIS TICKET HAS BEEN APPROVED (like some notary stamp they'd probably chargeus for anyway) and then bring THAT letter to an airport just IN CASE this stuff ever happens to us every time we fly?

Or... should we go by the previous 20+ years of FF programs in a general assumption that we paid for the ticket using a valid currency and that is why it should work no matter what?

When the rules suddenly and drastically change, people DO need to take action, not just roll with it and say, "if you don't like it, don't participate." After all, that would still leave the OP stranded in the middle of nowhere. Oh sure, next time he or she flies there will be little reliance on the FF useage, but we are talking about being told NO mid flight for something so obtuse it should be downright illegal!

So who... who do we call?

While I have eventually had my particular 'cases' ultimately dealt with to my satisfaction in the past, I have had very little luck in solving this type of thing when it comes to NWA/DL partner mileage crediting issues. I brought those up BECAUSE it is on the same airline (I should have been more clear about that--sorry). NW is merging into DL soon and if THAT piddily little mileage credit failure problem cannot be fixed, then this bigger 'mid-flight award validity' issue will surely be a huge nightmere to hurdle over with the airline.

We all first need to agree that while it's a game and we decided to play, that there ARE problems and WE must as a whole try to fix them. We must do this now and do it as one, because even if we think it wont affect us, it will in fact help clean up the act at these airlines for things that COULD affect us later in other areas we havent even thought of yet.

The airline could try anything just to amek or save a buck. We can no longr assume that because they are a big business that they 'would never do that to us.'

ohhh yes they would!
they ARE!

We must also agree that there needs to be a definitive point at which existing mileage reservations should count with today's rules and not be subject to change mid flight.

and all of the rules about flights NEED to be fully disclosed in type bigger than 5point, and in clear and reasonable fashions for everyone to see. Something like this could be acted into law even!

Yeah, good luck on getting THAT done. We have bigger things to work on in congress, like who to bust for using steriods in sports)

one other thing: I sure hope the OP did or does write into DL to demand refunds.

I tink the point is that there are times when paying your CC is lower on the list of priorities given one's situation. Being overseas MAY not just entail being in, say, some friendly internet cafe in London. It may mean you are stationed to help out with medical issues in Iraq or something like that too. Likely your internet access is not as easily used as it would be elsewhere. I dunno.
and yeah this veers off subject too

Sure -- but if you're in Iraq (or in the middle of the Sahara, or whatever) without the ability to access the Internet, your priorities will be different. You may not even be able to make the minimum payments required. Mind you, there probably aren't many merchants in the Sahara accepting credit cards.

But for the majority of the members of these forums, it's not really a question of not being able to make a payment. But each one of us has different priorities ...

I have all my credit cards set to automatically withdraw the statement balance from from my checking account each month. This prevents me from ever getting charged interest or late fees. I suppose there are cases where it could be bad (i.e. if my card was stolen) but the avoidance of fees and interest is worth that risk to me.

Anyway, yes, this is getting off topic.

Re-reading the original post, one thing really stands out to me - that when the OP spoke to the right person, the whole thing was fixed in "under a minute".

How much of a risk is it that someone behind the counter will call the police if they "don't like your tone"? I'm genuinely curious, because it seems to me that we need to get more assertive. With a lot of the horror stories I've been reading recently, it seemed to me that people accepted the bad things passively, rather than standing up for themselves. I could be wrong, of course - I wasn't there in any of those cases. And of course, one should always start with respect and kindness. But when a smile and "Isn't there *anything* you can do for me?" fails, then we need to move to, "This is unacceptable," to "I'd like to speak with your supervisor," and then start over again. If I'm being mistreated, I have no problem raising my voice, though I will always keep my language polite: "This is entirely unacceptable. I reserved these tickets a month ago and now you are stranding me here in midflight? I've been a loyal customer of your airline for years, as the very fact that I was able to reserve this flight with miles should demonstrate. If you can't help me, please let me speak with someone that can," etc.

Really, it seems like it's mostly about finding the person that CAN help you, at least based on the OP. And as Marathon Man says, how can we do that? How can we find the person that can "make it right" in less than a minute, and speak with them? Any ideas?

-kirax2

one way is to be someone of status within the airline's FF program.
another is to be someone who works for the police or FBI or TSA
Another is to be a pregnant woman
and finally, to get darn lucky.

I have a similar united horror story that nearly caused security to come over but in the end, I paid $2,000 for a new immediate ticket to get on what I was supposed to be on, and in 3 months' time, after much hell and pressing the issue with all parties, I had my money back with appologies and flight vouchers to boot. It sucked though, lemme tell ya. I had to be the tenacious one.

at the airline desk I experienced lies from supervisors and others, and one employee told me "There IS nothing you or we can do sir, this airline is bankrupt anyway!"

yeah I almost lost it.

I am guilty of traveling outside the area that is serviced by reliable internet. Silly me. :cool:

to address a few of yr points, kirax2
 

1) Well, my friend just cxl'd his Amex card because the automatic payments "somehow" didn't work, to the profit of Amex which then wanted to charge a $38 late fee. Result: Amex has just lost a customer of many years standing. The problem is that if the automatic process doesn't work as it should, there is no longer any understanding on the part of the CC company. They make most of their money on bogus fees these days, and "bad" customers are valued more than good customers. So it seems they either want you to become a "bad" fee-paying customer, or they don't want your business anyway. My personal choice -- too much hassle and keeping up with paperwork to be worth the few extra miles I earn. Admittedly I just don't spend that much money and CC miles never amount to anything for me anyway. I get BY FAR the bulk of my miles by flying.

2) I am a middle-aged woman. It doesn't matter how many times I say "please" and "thank you," if I contradict someone, instead of deferring to the other person's authority, then I am considered to be hysterical and out of control. Even Hillary Clinton couldn't nicely raise her voice without being considered a witch. If I persist at asking the same question, no matter how nicely, "May I see the supervisor, please?" then I am a nag. That's just the way the world works, and it isn't going to change before my next flight. I sometimes see middle-aged men get results by being assertive but even they, sometimes, get warned that they are subject to arrest/detention/"do you want to fly today?" My chances of a good result by "insisting" -- which is called "nagging" when a woman does it -- are close enough to zero that I won't risk it.

3) I agree with this point 100%: Really, it seems like it's mostly about finding the person that CAN help you, at least based on the OP. And as Marathon Man says, how can we do that? How can we find the person that can "make it right" in less than a minute, and speak with them? Any ideas?

I suspect this is what most of us would have to do in practice. Pay the extortionist fee and then put a charge-back through at the credit card company. This process is a nightmare, and I was told frequently that you can "never" charge-back an air ticket, under any circumstances. I had to do it once in the 1990s, and it took over a YEAR for the charge to be removed. I was pretty much subjected monthly or more often to threats from the creditor and at one point I was certain we'd all end up in court. Not fun. But you gotta do what you gotta do.

It could not be handled at the time of the flight no matter how polite or how tearful or how loudly you raised your voice. I didn't try the yelling, but I saw others in the same mess try it without success. I stuck with being courteous and very, very sad. But if the agent is determined to be nasty and to imagine that she is being threatened, at some point, there is nothing you can do but go along to get along and file a complaint later. And this was way before 911. I can't imagine that the situation would be any easier to deal with on site today.

Chase UMPV can be set up to automatically pay the amount of the last statement balance on the payment due date every month right from your checking account. You can be on the moon and still pay off your balance. ;)

That sounds like a bad experience, I do have to say I have never experienced a problem like that using miles. It has always gone smoothly and usually they seem to treat me better because they know I give them enough business to have the miles to fly.

What is unfortunately is that they keep upping the miles required for a ticket. Also, occasionally i get a terminal rep who just does not want to be there and takes it out on every customer.

Hopefully this was an isolated incident.

Yeah, me too. I'm hoping this was just an isolated case of a bad employee, which could happen anywhere in any industry. If there is really a pattern, it's far more disturbing.

And thanks to JonathanIT, I thought I'd heard of such an option but when I asked about it, the credit card in question pretended not to have heard of it. Sigh. I will investigate further.