GrizShel

Hi,

I am flying to Phoenix (and back) tomorrow, and when I try to check-in, I am being asked to pay a fare difference of $1801 and a $150 change fee (at least I hope it is a big joke; this is for a Deltified NW initiated change - I have never changed the ticket of my own volition).

What gives? Has anyone else experienced this? How did you resolve it?

I'm on the line with web support now.

fti

Didn't you get the memo? We switched you to a CO flight since the benefits are so much better there now. So you have to pay a change fee plus the fare difference.

My guess is that there was some sort of schedule change that the computer sees as a rebooking, thus is charging you the fare difference. I hope you get it straightened out.

GTITAN

This problem seems to arise from time to time. Here is a post about it I did similar to your situation many moons ago:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/north...air-socks.html

Here is a more recent one:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/north...-increase.html

Safe Travels!

GrizShel

Hey, now that CO has eliminated the 50% elite miles on non-CO and non-continental.com fares they're in the mix for me again. But I guess even though CO First Class is better than DL/NW it isn't $1951 better!

Just got off the phone, they had to reissue the ticket - there's apparently something about the way they post schedule changes in itineraries that sometimes causes this type of problem.

Actually, this is the second time in a row that I have had problem checking in online and it has alerted me to a problem that, if not discovered until I arrived at the airport, could have potentially taken long enough to resolve that it would cause me to miss my flight (in the other case the ticket had never been properly reissued after massive schedule changes, and I suppose I could have even been at risk of losing my seats if online check-in had not alerted me to a potential problem the day before).

Moral to the story - always do online checkin as soon as you can, even if you are going to have to check luggage at the airport. It's a good way to identify and take care of such problems with a reduced stress level.

Also - while the web support person was great the Plat Elite Services agent was not (what a let down) - she just said that means you have to check in at the airport (really bad advice if I happen to run into the wrong agent this could be a bear to take care of under the time pressure to catch a flight) and didn't offer any suggestions on taking care of the problem. I had to ask her to transfer me to web support to "satisfy my curiousity". Furthermore, the ES agent while telling me I shouldn't have to pay the $1951 refused to admit that there might be a programming problem with nwa.com .