I booked some time ago with SkyMiles a Delta flight to London and selected Comfort seats. On Saturday, I received an email from Delta that my flights had been changed. Checking the Delta website, I see the flights I had selected have not been changed, and coach seats are available. But the comfort seats are now all taken.
I booked only one seat. Was I bumped because Delta needed my seat for others?
It is true that a single seat booked with SkyMiles is probably down in the
priority queue for bumping, but the only reason I can think you'd be bumped
is for a sky marshal, and even then they should have put you in regular economy
on the flight and let you know/given you the option to change. But I guess if
schedule is more important than legroom, you could always tell them you
are OK with regular economy on the original flight.
I'd also keep checking the seat map if you move back to the original flight. Things
can always change.
It's also possible you're a victim of the Crowdstrike fiasco that seems to have
disproportionately impacted Delta.
I would say likely. We flew several years ago round trip to Buenos Aries on delta. We booked and PAID round trip in coach as I was able to reserve exit row. I was at least platinum if not diamond as I was commuting weekly for work. When we boarded a new seat assignment popped up. I was told it was an upgrade but it turned out to be two seats in coach in the middle of 4 or 5 across. I was livid and the flight attendant said I would get bonus miles. Got nothing. I complained to delta in writing and was told no seat assignment was guaranteed. I went to c who was sitting in my original seats and it was someone who was tall. I assume they had pull and insisted on an exit row. I would call delta and ask them.
This is what happened:
August 12--Received email from Delta that flights had been changed. The biggest change was being placed on a later 11:50 pm from Atlanta to London with a layover of nearly six hours. The original 9:55 pm flight is still scheduled, but the Delta website shows all comfort seats now taken, including the comfort seat I had booked months ago.
August 12--Spoke by telephone to Delta representative. Booked new flights. At the time of booking, these flights cost roughly 5,700 fewer SkyMiles than my original flights. The representative said he would round up and see that 6,000 SkyMiles were redeposited in my account and that the redeposit would take place in 24 hours.
August 14--After two and a half days had passed and the redeposit had not occurred, I tried calling Delta. Rather than waiting for a representative, I tried to resolve the issue using the text-message option. The last text received was that there would be no redeposit without any real explanation and despite what I had been promised.
August 14--I cancelled Sunday's rebooking and then rescheduled the same flights cancelled saving nearly 6,000 SkyMiles. Eventually, I should see the amount of the SkyMiles for the original reservation redeposited in my account.
August 14--To see why I lost my seat, I called Delta again, though this time held for a representative. I asked for an explanation, I was placed on hold, the call was terminated, and I received the recorded message asking me to grade the representative.
I expect to see a redeposit of points in the next few days. But I try to fly Delta, which I consider the top American legacy airline. This experience surprises me.
As a solo traveler on Delta, I find that kind unlikely. The theory that you would’ve been bounced because you paid with miles for someone who was paying with dollars doesn’t really make sense because in that case somebody like me who didn’t pay with anything would have been bumped down first. And trust me we are on every flight. There are a lot of platinum medallions out there.
Delta’s agents don’t really have the ability to move you to sell a seat to someone else. And their computer wouldn’t be involved unless the agents told it to. Also the agents are not compensated for selling that seat way, there’s no motivation to do it
I do think that it’s possible that there was an equipment change or something and that messed up the seats and you were the solo traveler and got rebooked. it’s highly possible that the new plane has less comfort seats than the airplane. I have had that happen.
And get off chat I’m sorry those chat agents lie!!! They will say anything just to end a chat . They have no idea what they’re doing, and you’ll be lucky if they don’t just cancel your flight all the way around because that was the easiest thing for them to do and then tell you there’s nothing they can do. And you can spend four hours on the phone with Delta dealing with the problem. Trust me, Chat is the worst possible way to do with anything on Delta
Expect your problem with your original refund of miles was the agent told you too soon. My experience says it takes about seven days. If you don’t get the miles, the best thing to do is then go into their website and fill out the complaint form. I would also do that and complain about the agent who hung up on me if you still had all the information which at this point, you may not.
For the ticket you canceled keep your eye out. It will take about seven days at most. If it does not just send them the complaint form on the website. It means the computer screwed up and an agent has to get involved and if you do the complaint form there’s tracking and it gets resolved if you call, you don’t have the tracking information to deal with it and it often just gets lost
If this booking is via miles, you should be talking to the Skymiles people and not regular reservations. They sometimes have a little more leeway.
And get off chat I’m sorry those chat agents lie!!! They will say anything just to end a chat.
I disagree. I'm not saying that does not happen, but overall, I've had very good experiences using chat to solve problems and in FAR less time than it would take to get someone on the phone. Usually what I do is call, get put on hold (or I'm assigned a call back), then while I'm waiting, I go into chat to see if the problem can be resolved there. And usually it can.
Well, IMO all the Delta agents lie. I am so fed up with the changes they have made to one of our trips that I am canceling it. One of the 6 major changes they made also included the new route costing less miles, and Delta flat out said they would not credit those back to me. I have absolutely no faith in Delta anymore.
We had booked a RT flight with Delta using SkyMiles, but then found a better deal with United. The 96,000 SkyMiles were never credited. My husband (who has the miles) called Delta but the rep refused to credit him the miles! He asked to speak to her supervisor, and low and behold (!!) the supervisor unwittingly credited him with 192,000 SkyMiles--twice the 96,000 originally requested. The reps at airlines can make mistakes both ways! We are now booked multicity for three using those SkyMiles!
RJ, keep at it but speak to a rep and then the rep's supervisor if you have to. What a nighmare!
I will wait until the seven-day period runs. Because I use SkyMiles, the lesson learned is to ignore calling Delta and online simply cancel the existing the flight and rebook a new one (though I think Frank's suggestion is a good one). The last few times I have done this, my SkyMiles were immediately redeposited, and there was not a seven-day waiting period.
I’m glad that an earlier poster has had success with Delta chat. I’ve used it three times. I’m a Delta diamond medallion member so supposedly one of them are more valued customers.
First time I knew the ticket need to be re-ticketed because I had used an upgrades certificate. Chat response was the ticket is perfect. You don’t need to do anything. You’ll be fine at the airport. Called- Agent look at the ticket and said oh dear it has to go to ticketing otherwise you could be hanging around the airport for an hour to get this done
Flight time change. Allowing 20 minutes to connect in Salt Lake City. For those have not been to Salt Lake City, it was not designed for 20 minute connections. Chat - That’s a legal connection. You’ll be just fine thank you for checking with us. End of chat. call - agent took one look at tickets said yeah that’s not going to work.
Strike three and it was a doozy Flight change makes connection impossible. Sent Chat a message. The response was we have done as you requested and canceled your flight. My response was there’s nothing in this chat that said to cancel my flight. Please don’t do that. Response thank you so much for chatting with us. End chat. I grab the screenshot and spend four hours on the phone with Delta to get my flights back at the original price instead of the thousand dollar price I was going to have to pay for a brand new ticket.
I’m not alone. I’ve seen a lot of other horror stories. My neighbor works for Delta and when I complained to him about this he just laughed and said don’t use chat trust me. (he wouldn’t give me any other information)
Luckily, with my status, it doesn’t normally take me long to get on the phone but every time they offer me that chat option it takes everything I have not to just laugh at the stupid computer. There’s no way I’m ever using chat again. three strikes I’m done.
I do the same as Mardee. Hold or wait for a living person and then attempt to resolve via chat.
I don't think I'd call myself a Delta fan, but I have better luck with their customer service than I do with other airlines and even other companies.
I had an interesting situation a week ago. I had booked a trip to Italy for January 2025. Into Naples, out of Rome. I got an email that my itinerary had changed but I couldn't find a change, all the flight numbers and times were the same. A few days later I was looking at my Delta trips on the app at bedtime (never do this at bedtime!) I noticed that instead of my 2 hour Amsterdam layover I had a 3 DAY layover. What the heck? Sometimes when a flight is cancelled, the computer seems to come up with the oddest replacements. I called Delta while I played on their website. I asked why this happened and they said they had been dropping some of the KLM codeshares. Anyway, we landed into leaving on the trip two days later and agent gave me a more expensive itinerary and "preferred seats"
I have an upcoming flight to Turkey, home from Venice. Delta changed my return so I'd arrive home 56 minutes later at about 11:15pm. I called customer service and told them I don't like getting home so late, it can be hard to get a Lyft. Delta didn't have to, but they changed the return to eliminate one of my connectings (JFK, ick) and gave me preferred seat at the original price, which had been quite the deal.
Sometimes it just doesn't matter to me why something happened. I just try to improve my situation. Chat sometimes works, typically a live representative works better.
Back when I was an actual frequent flyer, I loved using miles. Things seem to have deteriorated significantly since then; seats hard to get, administrative problems, other headaches.
Glad to now use a cash-back CC and just shop for the best flight pricing.
