MEMLawGuy

To start, let me be clear, I've never done this and have no intentions to do it. But this is a forum for discussion, and I'm curious if anyone has ever done this or knows someone who has.

I'm taking a trip with MEMLawGal. I had originally booked us both on a reward ticket. The other day, I canceled my award ticket after deciding to use PWM so that I could get MQM's. Catch is, to have the exact same itinerary, the price would have been over $2,200. A different itinerary where 3 of the 4 flights were the same was only $1,100. The cheaper fare involves an early morning departure from MEM with a 3+ hour layover in ATL. So I booked the cheaper fare to save 100,000 miles.

My intentions are to SDC to the later MEM-ATL departure once I hit the 24 hour window. (These are F tickets, so no fare bucket issues.) I am perfectly fine if I can't SDC into first and will take coach if need be. I highly doubt the flight will be completely sold out based on the inventory available now, about 2 weeks out. Worst case scenario is, obviously, I just leave early and we meet up in ATL and continue on together.

But all this got me thinking....

What's to stop someone from having a friend purchase a completely refundable ticket, cancel it within the SDC window, and then the person intending to fly immediately calls to SDC into the now vacated seat?

The friend could even purchase 2 or 3 seats and cancel them all, decreasing the chances of any timing issues with the other person calling in and claiming one of the seats.

I don't see how DL could ever track this unless the team doing it made it a habitual thing. I guess this is something along the lines of people who by refundable fares to act as a gate pass with no intention of ever flying.

Obviously, I'm sure this violates the CoC in some way, and many would argue it's immoral and/or unethical. But I'm curious:

Has anyone ever done this or know someone who did?

Widgets

That scheme incorrectly assumes that cancelling a ticket would open the inventory needed to SDC, unless these are all First Class tickets.

MEMLawGuy

Yes. My hypothetical scenario involves using only first class tickets because I thought of it in relation to my own trip, which is all in F.

kop84

My guess, is it does happen, but not very often. Aside from the moral/ethical issues with it...it's complicated and costly...you still have to have several hundred or thousand dollars tied up for a several weeks/months. And if DL.com isn't working properly and it's an IROP day, you could be on the phone for quite some time just to ensure you get a better seat.

Xeno

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...hold-seat.html

exwannabe

I am not going to get into the legal issue of if it is technically fraud because that argument has been played here about 1000 times.

But to me, it is simply wrong.

What is the difference between this and having a few dozen friends buy out the entire flight so you can get a coach ticket and be insured an upgrade?

We are not talking about a backup ticket. Or a speculative ticket. We are talking a ticket bought purely for the intent of holding inventory.

Even if one believes the airlines suck so they deserve it, does not mean that they should drop to their level.

MEMLawGuy

This is a little bit different in that my example takes it a step further. It's not the same person booking both the real and "fake" ticket. This one involves two people, presumably not sharing the same last name and ideally in different locations in the country, colluding to hide what they are doing. No risk of the double booking cancellation. Other nuance is that this involves using SDC rather than trying to apply an upgrade instrument. Much less "risk" IMO with SDC to the flight you want because it really only comes down to timing.

This is part of what intrigued me about this intellectual exercise. Could someone have their friend(s) buy out half the cabin to ensure that the person wanting to fly could buy the undesirable, cheap F route and then SDC to the desired, more expensive F route.

Again, let me reiterate that I have no plans to do this and agree with the sentiments that it is wrong and possibly fraudulent.

It's just an interesting hypothetical and makes me wonder at what point DL would try to investigate and go after someone. If it was one time and just one seat, probably not. If you had one person always cancelling tickets and never flying, probably would. If you had someone buy out an entire cabin and then cancel, most definitely would, I think.

MEMLawGuy

This thread, by the way, is the product of a slow Friday for me and my wandering mind.

javabytes

Even with FC tickets, the inventory isn't necessarily guaranteed to re-open.

tkey75

I'd love to see one of our neighborhood bloggers actually try to organize an experiment like this. Purely in the name of science, mind you.

Widgets

If it happened on a large enough scale that RM noticed, I think some SkyMiles account would be closed.

appleguru

I've only done this once, in an IRROP situation where the app couldn't auto-rebook me and hold times were over an hour for an agent... seats were disappearing fast on the only alternate option for me, so I bought a ticket to "hold" the inventory. When I finally got through, the agent canceled the ticket and got me all squared away.

I would never do this in any other situation, including the one OP described.

Xeno

I know the case I quoted and the one you theorize are not identical but it seems to me the implications are much the same not only in terms of fraud but eliminating upgrade inventory and boosting the price for anyone buying an outright D1 revenue ticket, and so on.

MADPhil

What you did is presumably OK as you intended to fly. The T&C prohibit booking a ticket without intending to fly.

tkey75

Probably many closed. Would sure make a fun read, though!