TC

I posted this in the Airline Forum, but no one is lurking there today. How about here?

I have 2 confirmed mileage tickets to visit Mom and Dad. Now we have to change dates. I am Gold and DH is Plantinum Elite. Platinum members have the change/redeposit fees waived. Gold does not. The fees are $100 per ticket to either change or redeposit the miles. I thought this would be no problem since DH is Platinum and he is on both bookings. NO! says Delta. The miles came out of the Gold mileage account, so fees apply. Yuk!

Anyone know of a way around this? Any coupons out there for a one time waive fee? So far, I've begged and pleaded, but no sympathetic ear at Delta.

I'll probably have to eat the fees, but just thought I'd ask. You're all so smart. I depend on your knowledge. Help!

dgarland

Seems like there's always an out for them to keep you from using miles, awards, etc. easily. My DH is also Platinum. From our experience, when you don't get the answer you want the 1st or 2nd time (or 3rd, etc), he just keeps calling the Platinum desk until he will eventually get someone who will do it. Sometimes we have to pay the fees or use the extra miles or whatever, but he usually has luck just being persistant. In fact, for a recent trip we took to Hawaii, it took him calling for a 2 month period before he got an agent that did what he asked them to do. It does seem like he only has luck with the Platinum Desk making exceptions to the rules, even for my tickets and I am not Gold or any other level. Good luck!

TC

Thank you, dgarland. I will keep trying. I do believe -- if you don't get the answer you want the first time, try, try, again. Your response confirms that it works. I have until the end of June to make some sort of decision, so I'll just hammer away. I called the Gold Line. However your suggestion is excellent -- I'll have DH call the Platinum line. Thank you for sharing.

divineMissM

I don't see any way around this but you never know. One thing I would do is ask them how best to handle this in the future...such as transfer the gold person's miles to the platinum person and have him make both reservations. However I'm sure there is a fee for transferring your miles, too. They have fees for everything these days. One airline, Allegiant, takes the cake. They post their ticket prices, and then once you try to buy a ticket you see that there is an additional fee if you want a SEAT on the flight.

TC

Thank you divine, In future I will know how to handle this. I will book tickets from DH's account. We both have a gazzilion miles and its just a toss up as to which account I dip into. I was simply confused/mislead/boogled by the mirade of rules and regs and thought that if DH was in the booking, the Plantinum rules would apply. Shame on me....I should have guessed that Delta would take the road with the most restrictions for customers.

TC

Hello dgarland, Just thought I'd report -- DH contacted the Platinum line representative. As you predicted, they waved the rebooking fee for him. It took two, late-night and weekend phone calls to get the job done, but it finally fell into place.

Another interesting little bit that came up during this turn around. While checking out mileage award tickets for our new destination the premium amount was 32,500 per ticket. However, when I logged in using my Gold status the premium amount for the same itinerary dropped to 25,000 miles. Even the Delta agent couldn't get it to price that way. It took about 30 minutes for her to override their system and make this work. She told DH that the pricing was 32,500 miles, but when she actually issued the ticket it repriced at 25,000. Who would ever get that far along? Many fliers would just switch to other flights that were lost costly in miles.

The lesson is -- always log in with your Elite status before searching for award tix. Thanks for your help.