Delta Reschedule Dilema
 

I made reservations in July to travel via Delta Airlines. The return flight was at 5:30 p.m., so this gave us 1 last day on the beach. Delta called me on 01/10 to say they had to reschedule us. Now we are booked late morning so we will lose our last day. As it is we cut the trip short 1 day so I could be fresh for work on Monday. They offered leaving a day earlier or later which doesn't work in this situation. I called back (good luck trying to get through....busy signals!) and told them I was angry, we are losing 1 vacation day, I booked in July, this is our first time flying Delta, and said if we had changed our schedule, we would have been charged. I got no where, even talking to a "supervisor". He offered $50 vouchers for another flight. I told him I didn't think we would fly Delta any more. He told me I could write a letter to their corporate office. Has anyone had any experience dealing with this issue with Delta and will I just waste my time writing this letter to them? We travel often and the only time a schedule was changed, it was arriving only 3 minutes later than the original time!

Any suggestions?

hmmm, airline consumers seem to have very little in the way of negotiation...esp if you have to talk with forgein Airline Agents...
good to look at what the airline rebooking rights are: there was a recent article in Conde Nast Traveler that outlined the airlines rights and issues of rebook and ompensation usually related to rebooking AFTER the original flight time...don't know about earlier flights..


my DH and I just came back from Wyoming at Xmas. While in Salt Lake a major Delta hub..Delta announced they had a very serious overbook issue on a commuter flight..asked for volunteesr and when no one did they started pulling people off by the last person who checked in including online checkin ins.. was bad as the next flight left 3 days later...they were compensated but did little to apease the xmas delay

I'm sorry to say that this is the nature of air travel -- schedules change. While it may seem that booking in July gives one a priority, in fact it is part of the problem. Booking that far in advance, almost guarantees a schedule change. Yes, you'll get short changed on your last beach day, but I've had to overnight halfway home because of schedule changes and I've had to depart a day early to overnight at LAX when Quantas changed their departure time to Australia by 15 minutes -- making my connection in LA a misconnect -- all at my own expense I might add.

Honestly, I'm surprised they offered the $50 vouchers. You should have taken them as its a pretty sure bet you won't get more. Given Delta's current financial status, you're lucky they are still in business to fly on any schedule. To answer your question, yes, you will most likely waste your time writing to Delta.

Look at it this way, you're trip isn't cut short by a <u>whole</u> day, its only shortened by a few hours -- late morning, early evening, maybe it will rain that day and you'll be happy to head for home.

Go..have a good time...don't worry.

You aren't losing one day, you are losing six hours. Given that you would have had to leave for the airport by 3:30 anyway, you are actually only losing a couple of hours of beach time.

IOW, this isn't a giant drama or unresonable on behalf of the airline.

What exactly would satisfy you then? For them to change the schedule back?

If you're not happy with the new schedule, then just ask for a whole refund and book elsewhere. No need to get angry or emotional.

I hear your pain. If we have to pay the airlines $100 to change a flight, they should have to do the same for us.

The airlines won't budge on their $100 change fee...even for HOSPITALIZATION, but they want US to understand when THEY need to reschedule? Another good reason for people to just stay home.
And they whine that they're bankrupt but can't figure out how to answer the damn phone? Maybe they'd sell more tickets if they could answer a phone once a month.

You weren't kidding about Delta's phone lines, they have been busy all day. Snow storm somewhere? I wonder if they'd let me be late for my flight due to that same storm.

Next time they ask me for a $100 change fee, I'm gonna offer them a $100 voucher.

I can't remember the last time I made vacation air reservations that far in advance (which I often do) that the schedule did NOT change - no matter what airline - often in a significant way. Like you, I carefully research and plan, only to have the airlines mess it up. We are flying Boston-Miami next month and got rerouted thru Cincinnati (instead of Atlanta) - something I tried to avoid in the winter.

So if misery oves company you might feel a little better - this seems to be the nature of air travel as airlines do whatever they can to stay flying. I personally would rather pay 10-20% more and get what I planned for, but if I were in the majority, airlines would do it.

According to my many friends in the airline industry, here is the scoop on schedule changes.Yet another example of &quot;If you dont know our rules, we'll screw you&quot;.What a mentality.Anyway,when you are informed of the schedule change, you are offered an alternative flight.On your side, whether you know it or not, you are required to make an immediate decision.From the airline's side of this is that they are required to offer you one and only one alternative.In your case, you did exactly what millions of travellers do.Myself included.You said &quot;Sure,OK, what other choice do I have?&quot; To the airlines, that constitutes &quot;acceptance&quot;.You accepted their offer.You only get one offer.But then, hey, you thought about it!! Ooops, thats not what I want to have happen.You go back to the airline, and they've got you!&quot;Sir, you accepted our offer.we are not obligated to offer you any more assistance.Had you KNOWN, and had you ASKED, we would have offered you a full refund.But we, the airlines are NOT stupid.Thank you for calling.Have a lovely day.&quot; That is almost word for word what one of my roomies was told in the same situation.Chalk this one up to the learning experience.And its not just Delta.They are all the same.

It's not just Delta! I live in New Orleans and had ALL KINDS of scheduling grief post-Katrina. Some airlines were better than others about &quot;flexing&quot; rules to help me but some, inc. Continental and Delta, were pretty rigid.

I have said this in one of the thread I started a while ago (and got criticized for). The whole problem arises because many of us buy deep discount tickets that have lots of restrictions.

My advice to many travlers is this. <b>Only buy full fare only.</b> Even for full-fare, air travel is more affordable than ever. So, buy your full fare ticket. You can do it last minute, you can change it anytime, you can get full refund, you can often get upgrades to first class.

[If you're elite on Continental, you can even a ticket on a full flight (with 1-3 days advance, depending on elite level)! So, there's absolutely no reason to buy well in advance. When you decide to fly, then buy ticket and fly. How civilized!

I'm wondering if OP could have asked to be rebooked on a Skyteam partner (CO, NW) at the time when DL called him/her &amp; gotten a flight that was more appealing?