Anybody use Delta to fly to their cruise port?

[kristikae]

I'd call Delta back until you get someone who is willing to help you cancel the flights. If they change your flight by more then 2 hours you have the option to cancel with no penalty. They do not have to allow you to change to a one way ticket at a lower price however so you'll have to book the outbound air separately. Airlines are so frustrating! My advice - always always always get the name of the person you're talking to with airlines and cruiselines. Request that your booking is remarked with anything they tell you so when you call back whoever you are talking to can find the notes and then it's not your word against theirs.

[Dee777]

I wanted to come back and update you all, as you were so kind to advise, commiserate and offer your advice to me. Thank you all so much.

 

I spent a great deal of time on the phone "fighting my way up the chain of command" so to speak ;)

 

This is the end result: This morning I was given a 100% money-back refund on my VISA card. No more arguing, I was on the phone for hours yesterday talking to whomever I could get on the line, speaking to supervisors etc. and was offered anything BUT a refund. This morning I called when I got up, asked to speak directly to a supervisor and told her my tale. She said "No problem!" and told me I could expect to see 100% of my fare returned as a credit to my VISA. My in-laws received the same.

 

I have booked West Jet for all of us. Thank you all again for your assistance, it was very much appreciated :)

 

Dee

[Shorex]

That is very good news. I am happy for you. Now - for all the Delta detractors, this was a customer service success. Delta was not legally obligated to give a full refund, but did so anyway. Good for DL.

[Dee777]

Thank you, Shorex. I was very happy to have the matter resolved. However it has made me wonder why I had so many different agents and supervisors telling me different things. Some said we would pay $150 admin fee each. Some said $50.00 each. One even told me that it was "impossible" to cancel and i would lose everything!

[Shorex]

Customer service agents for any airline have a wide spectrum of experience and knowledge. Couple that with training that emphasizes the routine and common situations and you have the frequent necessity to make multiple calls and speak to multiple people before resolution.

 

If your initial request had been to simply cancel the nonrefundable DL tickets and get a refund because the flight changes were incompatible with your travel plans, you have likely been successful. However, the attempt to cancel the return segment only and get a partial refund, well, scrambled their brains.

 

Once it became clear that what you really needed to do was to cancel the entire itinerary because of Delta's schedule changes, your request moved back into the common and routine.

 

The takeaway from this event should be:

1) most airline tickets are non-refundable unless

2) the airline makes subsequent and significant changes to the itinerary or

3) some other rare circumstances apply and even then you

4) keep calling customer service until someone grasps the big picture

[Dee777]

Thank you for clarifying that for me :) I have learned significantly from this experience and will know better next time. Fortunately things went well this time and hopefully there won't BE a next time.

 

I have booked flights before that have been changed, but we were able to be flexible with our departure and/or arrival times. Whenever we have cruised, I either booked the air through a travel agent or with the cruise company, this is my first time booking air for a cruise.

[stephenandrew]

FWIW, my own experiences with Delta have been very satisfactory. For the most part, their flights have departed/arrived on time without issue, and in the one recent flight where we had a significant delay because of a mecahnical issue (4-5 hours), they emailed us a day or so after we got home and offered us an apology and gave my wife and I 4800 frequent flyer miles as "compensation" for our time lost. Frankly, I was impressed with the apology alone.