Delta clamps down on last minute award changes
 

If, for any reason, you can't fly within three days of your scheduled flight, and you aren't a Diamond or Platinum member (and that's probably most of us), Delta now makes you forfeit the miles you used to redeem your award trip: http://www.delta.com/skymiles/about_...ates/index.jsp

Ah, geez .... shitty tickets.
I rarely fly on Delta, however have been hanging on to 26k miles wanting to eventually use for domestic flight .... I'd better do so before frequent flier program goes away altogether.

Delta headed downhill all the way for FFs

Charges are twice as high to book as some othere

A family of 4 can pay up to $200/leg just for one

bag each... they made 1 BILLION last year on those

new bag fees... Used to love them now so high they

are transport of last resort for me.

Thanks for the info. I'm glad I used up most of my miles with them. It is pretty much impossible to find award tickets at the lowest level.

Delta make Northwest look better and better every day. I wish they had not merged.

Meh! And me holding onto 296,000 miles for a trip with DH next year....thanks for the info.

296,000 miles--<i>very</i> nice.

a) PMs and DMs are not exempted.

b) Agents have discretion to refund miles for emergencies.

I have plenty of issues with Delta's Award program, but this isn't one of them. I think this might actually end up being a slight improvement, or at least neutral.

Did anyone read the link?

"Over the past year, more than 1,000,000 Award Tickets were reissued or canceled within 72 hours of departure. As a result, a significant number of these Award Seats departed unused as other members did not have time to rebook them. .... This change will make unused seats available to other members and ultimately increase Award Ticket availability"

Ok .. I am very cynical about the second part, because Delta doesn't seem motivated to improve it's award availability, or even make the availability viewable.

But ...with the previous policy someone could book an awards ticket, maybe even an allusive "low", not use the ticket, and without any penalty the miles would be redeposited. I don't think it's good for anyone, other FF's or Delta, to have those seats fly empty.

Honestly, what negative impact will this have for most of us? How many award flights have most of us had to cancel less than 72 hours before departure?

Oh, and I didn't read anywhere that Diamond or Platinums were excluded from this?

I'm with American's AAdvantage program, so this doesn't affect me.

Up until now, was there no penalty at all for redepositing Delta miles? If you purchased a ticket with money rather than miles, you'd pay a penalty for cancelling at the last minute (unless it were a fully flexible, fully refundable ticket). Why shouldn't it be the same with miles?