Poor customer service from Delta... compensation?

I have an equally "horrid" story on Air France, American, United and Virgin

Happens on all of them. Your luck was having a friend because otherwise AF is known for the gallic shrug.

Since you got what you paid for you might get a few skymiles from DL but you aren't really due any compensation. And of course telling an airline "we won't use you again" pretty much tells them 'why bother'?

I also expect you are not "high value". You need to think well into 6 figures to achieve that status.

When Air France left all our bags in Paris, Delta, as they should be, was very helpful.

Delta is probably not going to miss you any more than you will miss them.

Delta sold us codeshare seats on KLM and Air France. The flights
themselves went without a hitch, and we were especially impressed by
the seats, food, beverage and service on Air France.

Welcome to the RS forum -

I am confused. You say that the booked business-travel flights "went off without a hitch" and that you
pleased with Air France. Then you backtrack and say that "Delta refused to help us when Air France downgraded us on a segment because they incorrectly coded our fare. And when our seats were separated they again refused to help us."

These two narratives don't match up. How were you 'downgraded' other than your seats being separated? ? Were you both still in business class? How long was that flight segment?

As well, "Their errors finally corrected by a friend who works in management at AF/KLM." OK so the issue was addressed and resolved. So why are you asking for "...precedence for getting compensation for poor customer service from Delta."? What do you hope to get from them at this point?

I don't understand the complaint either. As others have pointed out, it sounds like your problem was rectified by a friend. Most of us don't have friends who work in management, so you were lucky.

Regardless, I have nothing but praise for Delta's customer service overall. Are there glitches occasionally? Sure, but really I haven't had any real problems. In fact, the last time I had a problem, which was when a flight was canceled at the last minute, they compensated me promptly and were extremely polite when they communicated with me.

I am guessing part of the confusion with this post is that the downgrade and subsequent time with customer service happened in the days prior to the flight, hence the flights went off without a hitch.

It must have been very stressful for the OP, let ff vent. It doesn’t hurt anything. However, it probably doesn’t impact anyone’s decisions about air travel.

I'm curious when you contacted Delta about the downgrades. Delta was the "marketing airline" (the airline that sold the ticket); Air France was the "operating airline" (the airline whose airplane actually made the flight). At check-in (usually 24 hours prior to the flight), the marketing airline (in this case, Delta) hands off control of your ticket completely to the operating airline (Air France). At that point, the operating airline is 100% in control of seating, gaits, travel disruptions, and any customer service problems that arise related to the flights on the operating airline.

So, if you contacted Delta about the issue on the day of flight, Delta was unable to service your ticket. It's not a matter of Delta providing bad customer service; it's a matter of Delta physically being unable to do anything related to your ticket because it was under the control of Air France. This process is not unique to Delta; it's how all marketing airline/operating airline relationships are set up.

If you contacted Delta about the issue on the day of the flight, no compensation is warranted because Delta had no control over the situation. But, hey, if you want to ask for compensation, they may throw 1,000 or 2,000 SkyMiles your way.

Perhaps a benefit of the doubt is on order if code share tickets are something the OP has not encountered before. Even though code shares have been around for nearly 40 years. Before making a similar purchase in the future, the OP might want to educate themselves on the peculiarities of the system; especially which airline is responsible for what at different stages.

Honestly do we really think the OP will be back? Looks like an account registered just to complain and generally when the response is not "oh yes the company was 100% wrong and you deserve lots of compensation" it seems like these posters just disappear.

first thread, but 2 missing replies... difficult to have sympathy with no dialogue

Thanks all for the advice... would like some comp, seems unlikely to get it, some seem to misunderstand, while the situation was eventually "handled", it was not by Delta, nor would they take any responsibility for resolution, and the damage was repeated wasted time and stress dealing with something one would expect would not be a problem with two 5k+ tickets during a vacation.

OP, you apparently did not understand a couple of the posts that pointed out that with a code share ticket, it is the operating airline that is responsible for handling any problems you have, once your first boarding pass is available. Not the booking airline. Thus Delta is not the airline you should have been dealing with. And secondly, the price of your ticket is completely immaterial.

I agree with CJean. I am sorry it happened to you, but when my Delta flight was canceled, Delta was the one that had to reimburse me, even though I booked the flight with KLM.

Because the actual flight was on a Delta airplane, which has a code-share partnership with KLM, Delta was responsible, not KLM. And Delta was the one that had to reimburse me $700 because the canceled flight was delayed for more than six hours, and therefore I was entitled to a certain amount of restitution under EU law. And Delta did that promptly because it was their responsibility.

However, in your case, it was not Delta's responsibility to fix the problem caused by Air France's downgrade. It was Air France's responsibility to do so because Air France was the airline that was operating the aircraft. I'm not sure how else to say it to make you understand, but you might want to read up on code-shares and see which airlines are aligned. You can also use code-shares to your advantage. For example, I book sometimes through KLM or Air France because it's cheaper than flying Delta, but I still get to fly on a Delta plane. That works well for me.