Delta – The shoe drops

[Fang]

Since I am from St. Louis I have had many expierences with bankrupt airlines (TWA). After the TWA was bought out by American, we saw a drastic reduction in flights to and from St. Louis.

 

I have always booked my airline tickets through a TA. I have never used a cruise lines airfare, or used them for booking (even through a TA). I see no advantage to it, for me.

 

My TA was always able to change flights when TWA went bankrupt the many times. My TA was able to move things around when AA reduced the flights out of STL, without a charge.

 

Maybe I have a much better TA, I doubt that. But, I think that any TA, worth working with, should be able to do a much better job than what is being done on this post. I know that I would expect much better service.

[caviargal]

I have always been treated well by Delta. Very recently they made a schedule change which had me getting in 4 hours later than originally booked. not only did they change the flight to a more convenient time, they let me choose an alternate airport that was more convenient.

 

I prefer to deal with the airlines directly and would not book air through a cruise line.

[WASUP]

We flew american and they changed the outbound flight by more then two hours and I called and then they changed the times to accomodate us and they also changed the airport and we didnot have to drive to miami from Fort Lauderdale, we were not charged an extra penny

 

We are flying to Barcelona in mid Nov. we check at least once a week right now the flights on Delta, they have changed the time leaving by 40 minutes earlier, I dont mind that as I rather be early then late for a major international connection in NYC

[operafan]

We're using custom air for our Europe trip and I called Delta yesterday to get seat assignments and was told that the outbound connection I picked no longer existed and they had substituted another flight. The agent looked at the flight, told me she could find me a better connection than that and then did so. No problem, no hassle. Gave us the seats we wanted AND for the couple we're traveling with.

[Lisa63]

That's one thing I'll give United -- they've got an excellent system for this. I receive both email and a phone call to my cell phone in the event of any scheduling changes to my flights. They do this for everyone who has signed up for this free service, from their 1K flyers down to the one-trip-a-year folks, too. They send the notifications as soon as a change occurs.

I remember one time I was changing flights at O'Hare, going between Terminals B and C on the moving underground walkway. My cell phone rang, and it was an automated message from United alerting me that my next flight was going to be delayed 15 minutes. I thought that was great.

 

On the other hand, Delta didn't contact me at all, even though I have over 100K miles with them and I am signed up for automatic notifications. I've learned to check my itineraries on their Web site from time to time. Yet on the rare occasions I needed to make changes, they were very nice, as others have posted.

[ingrid295]

Continental notified us of a change to our return flight from the 1 p.m. after the cruise to the 10:45 a.m. which Celebrity advised we could not make.

 

I had the worst experience dealing with Continental over the schedule change... they were rude and after paying $250 more pp to fly on the 1 p.m. flight vs. the 10:45 a.m. flight, we were forced onto the 10:45 anyway...

 

When we finally convinced Continental that we could not make the 10:45 flight, they wanted to charge us the $100 change fee. Plus, the flights we're on now are selling on CO's website for $110 pp less than we paid for our original flights. And No -- Continental would not refund the difference.

 

My biggest concern now is that they will have yet another schedule change to reinstate the 1 p.m. return now that we re-booked on the 4:45 p.m.... Murphy's Law!

 

It is inconvenient to have a schedule change that really impacts your plans, especially when you're traveling with two disabled pax, but it's totally out of your control, so we need to just move on as best we can on & enjoy the vacation.