Trevor’s lung collapsed last year, flummoxing his plans to travel with Delta from New York to Toronto. Delta issued a voucher and promised Trevor that it could be redeemed anytime within one year. What they didn’t tell him, at any point, was that they started counting not from the date of his planned travel, or from the date he requested the refund, but from the date they issued the original ticket.
Trevor sent us his exchanges with Delta. His initial letter:
Dear Delta,
In June of 2007, I experienced a collapsed lung. At the recommendation of my thoracic surgeon to avoid flight for three to six months from the time of my operation, I was unable to use tickets booked on June 11, for a flight from NY JFK to Toronto—flight XXXXXXXX.
After being made aware I would not be able to use the tickets, I called a Delta representative who informed me that once receiving a signed letter from my physician, I would be given full cred ($365.58) for the flight. The credit would be available for one year. On both occasions I spoke with Delta representatives—when canceling the flight and when confirming my letter was received—I was not made aware that the credit expired on the date the flight was booked (June 11) and not the date of departure (Aug. 3). This information was only relayed when I attempted to use the credit on June 24, 2008. No email or letter acknowledging the restriction was ever offered, just the instruction to call when I wished to apply the credit. On top of that, nowhere in the confirmation information given to me by Travelocity is the booking date listed, only the flight date and I’m sure you can imagine, given my health circumstances, how that is unsatisfactory if you expect me to consider June 11, the key date in this situation.
I understand Delta must have restrictions and expiration dates for credit; however, I feel my medical condition was taken advantage of by inadequate customer care that neglected to communicate the central piece of information. I am using the credit in a window well within a year of the flight date. This is the first time I’ve booked a flight since my injury and am dismayed by a lack of sensitivity by Delta’s policies and customer care representatives.
I appreciate your consideration and understanding.
Delta’s response:
Thank you for your correspondence to Delta Air Lines.
We realize you expect to receive accurate information when you call us. Our Reservation Sales representatives are carefully trained in all our procedures, including providing a positive experience for our valued customers.
Please be advised most unused international tickets can be applied towards new travel, domestic or international, to commence within one year from issue date of the original ticket.
Delta tickets and other travel-related documents are valid for one year from the date of issue. Once a ticket or other document has expired, it has no further value and cannot be refunded, extended, or exchanged.
While we would like to offer special consideration in cases such as yours, we are unable to honor the many requests that we receive from others in similar situations. We follow a consistent policy to ensure that Delta is fair to everyone who travels with us. Accordingly, we must respectfully decline your request.
Again, thank you for writing. We recognize this was not the response you expected to receive and trust you will understand our position. We value your business and hope you will continue to choose Delta. Should you need to contact us in the future, or find information about our service or operations, please visit us at delta.com.
Sincerely,
Irene M. Roberts
Manager
Customer Care
Can’t you feel the love and care of their velvet-covered sickle?
Trevor responded:
Dear Ms. Roberts,
I’m sure it comes as no surprise that your response is completely unsatisfactory and no, I do not in any way understand your position. Due to human error, Delta has stolen—that may sound like a strong word, but is in fact the ONLY way to refer to it—almost five hundred dollars from me.
You can claim your “Reservation Sales representatives are carefully trained”; however, all experience in this situation points to quite the opposite. Just one example, it took two hours and the escalation of the issue to a supervisor before anyone could even figure out how to locate my reservation. I understand the challenges of staffing qualified people to low-paying positions, but don’t screw your customers when they slip up. If you have many requests from “others in similar situations” than you have an institutional problem that needs to be fixed and I do not feel I should pay the price for that failure. It is certainly not Delta being “fair to everyone who travels” with you. Quite the opposite in fact.
In a business whose success and failure hinges on the ability to create customer loyalty—one ticket, just one, bought by me could erase any loss you’d take from giving me MY MONEY back—it’s shocking to me that you’ve decided to give me the middle finger and I’m sure, a contributing factor to Delta’s struggles. I will NOT “continue to choose Delta.” In the internet age, I’m just shocked Delta doesn’t understand this costs more than it saves. You have no right to this money and with poor customer service from top to bottom, have taken advantage of my illness.
Attached you’ll find signed statements from just a few of the people who’ve heard my story and agree that Delta has abused its corporate powers and hidden behind policies that avoid accountability. This will be just the beginning as I feel it’s important people hear how your company approaches its customers.
I will be happy to forgive and forget if you decide it’s worth actually considering my case individually and realize the importance of respecting your customers especially when they are confronted with life and death health challenges.
We’ve shown that a well-crafted, reasonable Executive Email Carpet Bomb can decimate arbitrary airline deadlines. Send an EECB to Delta’s executives using previously published contact information, and don’t forget to cc the Department of Transportation.
PREVIOUSLY: EECB Scores Direct Hit On Delta’s $25 Extra Bag Fee
(AP Photo/David Kohl)
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I’m planning on buying airline tickets for business travel for my team within the next week or two. Delta’s response to this traveler’s reasonable request will help me decide which airline to choose for the several thousand dollars of airfare I plan to spend.
@speedwell:
No need to be overly dramatic, and may I say, it would be a bit rash to make a choice of airline based on this one story. Every major airline has this policy, and you will not get a different response from another carrier. The grass is not greener somewhere else, that you would be “showing them” by taking your business elsewhere.
The reason that credit begins from the issue date rather than the travel date is that the airline receives your payment on the issue date, and wants you to have 1 year to use it up to clear it off their books. Airline tickets can be purchased almost a year in advance, and if credit/refunds were based on the travel date, that credit could last until nearly 2 years in the future, depending on the travel. The airline wants an easy, fixed known date, so they chose the issue date as the start of the clock. Not saying it’s right or good, or that you have to understand why, but that’s just what it is and you have to live with it. They could’ve made tickets as “use-it-or-lose-it”, so maybe you should look at this gratefully as a free year of credit.
The best hope for the person in the story, is to ask for sympathy, rather than accusing the airline of “stealing”. The 2nd letter comes off as very officious and accusatory despite the misunderstanding being the customer’s, and using his illness as an entitlement to circumvent the company’s policy, rather than asking for help. Who wants a customer who threatens to leave at the drop of a hat? He would do best to request sympathy, and a one-time waiver due to his health circumstances, so that the credit can be extended for a few months.
please let us know how this turns out.
I had a similar thing happen to me.. I bought a ticket through American Airlines to go to Coachella 06 with the lovely wife until she needed emergency oral surgery the day before we were to leave. I called AA, got a voucher and life went on. Fast forward to this past year I was going apply it towards a ticket for my Grandma’s funeral in Seattle and learned that even though my voucher was issued the day before I was to leave that date last year, it was the ORIGINAL purchase date (Feb 06) that was the start date for the expiration countdown. I was upset, but like a dumbass I just assumed it would be the date they issued the voucher.. Oh well.
@kepler11: What drama? It’s simple. I have to purchase airline tickets for my team at a major international corporation for a face-to-face meeting. I do this every six to ten weeks (so I know what proper service from an airline should be, and your condescending, ignorant remarks about how airlines work are out of place).
I have a number of choices. I can make my choices based on whatever criteria I want to, including the principle of “those who are not trustworthy in small matters are unlikely to be trustworthy in large matters.” I think to myself, “What if I needed to call on customer service to help me with something that was all or in part their fault? What would happen to me?”
That’s what consumerism is. If you don’t understand that, you are in the wrong place, my dear.
@kepler11: And at this point, if he had sent that letter off, he will not be getting it.
I just today had to cancel a flight I booked on Travelocity and they do make this policy clear that it is one year from the date of purchase of the ticket. Although this may have changed from last year when you booked your flight, the date of purchase is the date of your confirmation email.
I went back and checked my confirmation email from last year’s flight and it does have the same language in the confirmation about canceling.
Here is the part : “Need to change or cancel your trip?
Use our online calculator to check the fees and rules before you decide”. After you follow the link there is the full explanation of what to do.
This is the first time I have ever had to cancel a flight so I thought it would be more difficult than it turned out to be. The cancellation will cost me $150 to rebook with the airline and $30.00 more goes to Travelocity to rebook the flight.
I understand your anger about feeling cheated but your 2nd email will most likely fall on deaf ears. I wish you luck in trying to continue to get credit towards another flight because of your health reasons though.
There is a glaring error in this story. No “voucher” was ever issued. The original reservation would have been documented to allow him to apply the ticket to another flight without a change fee, but when the ticket expires, it expires. Delta was generous to give this passenger what they did last year, but now that the ticket is no longer valid, he is asking Delta to take money out of their own pockets.
@kepler11: Your well-thought out response is, frankly, a load of BS. I don’t feel sorry if the airline has to carry a payment on their books. Excuse me, but don’t they MAKE money by holding on to a customer’s money until the flight?
And what happens if somebody buys a ticket eleven months in advance, and then gets sick? Does that make it reasonable for them to only have ONE month to rebook? That seems a little out of line.
His second letter doesn’t sound “officious”, it sounds angry. He did exactly what you suggested in the FIRST letter — asked for sympathy and a waiver. The airline told him to stuff it, that they had no sympathy, and they weren’t giving waivers to anybody.
Regardless of policy, if the airline didn’t communicate it properly, they need to own up and make it right.
@brainswarm: “he is asking Delta to take money out of their own pockets.”
Right. HIS money, that Delta did NOT earn.
I don’t know what it is, but most of these necessary rules that the airline impose upon their customers seem pretty shady. Let me elaborate on just this example… As kepler11 said, the airlines wants a nice fixed date by which you have to use it, so they can clear it off their books. Yeah that’s great, after that year, it clears off their books right into their bank account… Awesome, free money for them, no service provided. That’s stealing. For that matter, even something as simple as a non refundable ticket is pretty close to stealing. However, on a non-refundable ticket, at least the person knows that they are getting their money stolen from them. In what dimension do you pay for something, not get that something, and still have to pay for it. It should be illegal to take people’s money and then not provide the product or service which they gave you the money for.
Delta should have just given him a refund in the first place, rather than give him the runaround and a huge pain in the butt, which turned into him giving them 400 bucks for no reason. I understand that every business has “policies”, but when did it become ok for those “policies” to decide they can take your money and give you nothing in return.
That’s wrong, people should stand up for their right not to be ripped off.
I also really liked his second letter back to Delta, and while it may not accomplish anything, judging from the response he got from Delta originally, there isn’t anything that would accomplish him getting his money back. So, at least he got to feel a little bit better. I must say, my reply would have been much harsher and filled with a lot of random cursing. I probably would have pursued it relentlessly just to make myself feel better. So, great letter OP.
People, learn to stand up for yourselves….
That is all
@speedwell:
Nothing in my message was condescending (seems like you are though, “my dear”), and I’m not assuming that you don’t know what you want in an airline or that you don’t have the right to choose as you like. But I am questioning the rationale behind your decision to judge Delta based on this one story, and others who would do the same based on lack of knowledge of the alternatives and how they are not substantially different.
If you’re going to do so, you should at least choose to make a statement with your money based on reason and rational expectation. I’m simply pointing out that if you’re a responsible and informed person in charge of such a large sum of money (and not just basing a multi-thousand $ purchase on a story at consumerist), and you say you’re going to judge an airline by its response to this, and take your money elsewhere if it doesn’t satisfy your sense of right/wrong — then shouldn’t you make sure that the other airline you take your money to, has a different policy?
You have not just had surgery, or have some other reason they would waive the rules if you ran into this refund/credit situation yourself. You would face the same 1 year expiration date at any major airline. So what have you shown by taking your business to another airline that would’ve done the exact same thing? How did that teach them a lesson? Will you have to leave that one too when you read a story about them? This policy is the same all around (with every airline that flies internationally) — if you’re responsible with your company’s money, shouldn’t you base your decision on real things that are different between airlines you want to choose from?
put another way, if you avoided Delta because of this, could you say to your boss that you approved spending your money at a more expensive airline (say if Delta was the cheapest), because the other airline would give you a credit beyond 1 year if you were mistaken about it?
@scerwup:
…As kepler11 said, the airlines wants a nice fixed date by which you have to use it, so they can clear it off their books. Yeah that’s great, after that year, it clears off their books right into their bank account… Awesome, free money for them, no service provided. That’s stealing. For that matter, even something as simple as a non refundable ticket is pretty close to stealing. However, on a non-refundable ticket, at least the person knows that they are getting their money stolen from them. In what dimension do you pay for something, not get that something, and still have to pay for it. It should be illegal to take people’s money and then not provide the product or service which they gave you the money for.
You see, this is what airlines have to contend with in terms of what their potential customers understand or misunderstand about what airline tickets are, and how loosely people will just throw around the term “stealing”, no matter how uninformed and idiotic. No wonder they have trouble surviving.
When you buy an airline ticket, you are handing over your money over for the airline to take you from place A to B on the day and time specified. If you don’t use it, you have basically given up the value of that ticket. How is it different from a baseball game you miss, minutes on your cellphone that you don’t use, or bread that goes stale? In every case, it is your lack of use of that item that’s the cause. Just because you didn’t use it, doesn’t mean they didn’t deliver it to you and have “stolen” it. Why don’t you protest all of these things by the same logic?
The airlines are being “generous” (a very relative term here I admit) by letting you use the credit within a year of purchase. They don’t even have to do that. They could make all tickets completely non-refundable and expire in value after you miss the flight. Many airlines do that in other countries. But here, they give us this option, and we accept the conditions when we buy the ticket. Unfortunately, many people have forgotten or simply don’t know that this is the case.
Sorry, I wasn’t going to reply further or answer more in this thread, but sometimes stupidity is intolerable.
@Alger: So would you also argue that it’s unfair for warranties to expire, or for retailers to put a time limit on merchandise returns?
customer service reps are not “carefully trained” they are given a training course full of more holes than swiss cheese then flung out on to the call floor to fend for themselves.
@kepler11: I’ll take my money to a company that is more likely to share my values and my idea of how to do business. In my company, customer service is key. I think it’s pathetic that other companies don’t agree. If Delta was our customer, we would bend over backward for them. They are not likely to be purchasing oil well equipment anytime soon, but if they did, we would be as understanding and accommodating to them as we are to our other customers.
Healthy companies deal honestly and forthrightly, fully disclosing their terms, and acting generously to their customers. They understand that future business depends on the way they treat people. When companies are desperate and frightened, they start pulling back. They act like their customers are their adversaries instead of their reason for being. They adopt a pathological suspicion of being taken advantage of. All I can say to that is that mentally ill people (and unhealthy companies) see themselves and their weaknesses in everyone they have dealings with.
In my company, we are not penny-wise and pound-foolish. We buy refundable plane tickets in case the date of or reason for a meeting change. We have frequently been in situations where we wished we had spent a little extra to help ensure a better experience and better team morale. We have lost time and money because travel companies and hotels have treated us like they hate us instead like customers. Yes, my boss would approve if I purchased tickets at a more expensive airline, if the reason was that there was evidence that the less expensive airline had poor customer service and refused to accommodate reasonable requests. He has done so himself. His boss has done so as well. Our corporate culture is not full of suspicion and privation. We are frugal, not stupid.
When I was given a voucher for being bumped off of an overbooked flight, it very clearly had the expiration date printed on it. Was there no physical voucher given or did it not have the date on it? They must’ve at least sent an email or something with the info on the voucher initially, right?
Still, I don’t quite get the OP’s complain that delta is ‘taking advantage’ of his medical condition. I mean, WTF? It’s not like the airline schemed against him nor did they somehow fool him into having his surgery when he did.
While it sucks for the guy the airline did not steal a thing. I do not mean to be harsh but its his job to know whats going on. If I had to cancel I would have asked from what date the credit was good for. No point in making assumptions in my opinion.
Personally I find it awesome enough that they even give refunds. At the end of the day in situations like this its the responsibility of the consumer not the company.
Getting it off the books? That’s an internal accounting problem. Using it as an excuse is an example of incompetence from anyone in a service business.
@brainswarm, a better analogy would be a roofing company that accepts payment but decides they don’t want to honor it because the roofing shipment was damaged and couldn’t be replaced before their fiscal year end. Oh, but it was in the fine print. Both cases are built for company convenience and are anti-customer.
BTW, is this the industry stump board today? Explaining why a company does something anti-consumer and thereby foisting blame on the customer doesn’t fix the problem. You guys are on the wrong board. Fascinating to see the interest, though.
@legwork:
“BTW, is this the industry stump board today? Explaining why a company does something anti-consumer and thereby foisting blame on the customer doesn’t fix the problem. You guys are on the wrong board. Fascinating to see the interest, though. “
Yeah, it’s not even April 1st
@kepler11: So, you can book tickets up to about a year in advance? So, if I booked a ticket today, July 12, 2008 to travel sometime around June, 10, 2009, how would Delta then issue a credit if something went wrong? If I had a heart attack or collapsed lung in like March/April 09 and had to cancel this flight, would I be S.O.L. since the furthest they can give a credit is to July 12, 2009?
While I agree they have a policy and it’s their right to stick to it, the credit SHOULD apply from the travel date.
If I booked a year in advance and had a medical emergency a month before my flight where I couldn’t fly for three months, then my reward for being prepared and booking early (and subsequently letting MY money sit in their bank account for a year gaining interest) is to get shafted since the credit would be good until the date of my original trip? Policy or not, it’s a horrible way of doing business.
@brainswarm: I’d argue that it’s unfair if they lied to you about when the warranty expires, and then denied warranty service to you because you missed the deadline.
@kepler11: “How is it different from a baseball game you miss, minutes on your cellphone that you don’t use, or bread that goes stale?” It’s different because they have the exact same flight day in and day out. If the Mets played the Dodgers every single day at the same time, you’d probably have quite an easy time exchanging the ticket for a different day. As for the bread, you still have the physical bread in your possession for you use (make crutons or feed birds).
And for a better “example”, if I buy a movie ticket for a specific movie at a specific time, and barf up a lung, I’m 100% sure I’d get my money back (and have for much lesser reasons), so that I could hopefully see the movie in that theater at a later date/time.
International carriers, such as Delta, must comply with international rules and regs. I don’t have access to the rules, but I suspect the 1 year from transaction date is written in the international regs.
Should Delta bend the rule for the customer? Possibly. But obviously Delta may be prohibited from bending the rule
(’cause if they do, they might have to allow Paraquay Citizens to fly on 20 year old tickets or something similarly stupid)
If I was the OP I would have responded to the initial denial with another Dr’s letter stating he was unfit to fly for much of the year (in truth he was) and ask Delta to bend the rules due to on going medical issues.
But the OP is already getting nasty. A Dr’s letter at this point is going to look a bit suspicious.
@brainswarm: Again, bad analogy – you still have the purchase in your possession and have or could have gotten at least some use and benefit out of it.
if Delta refuses to apply common sense and “make an exception” – could a Delta employee (a board member or ranking corporate officer) from out of state be named as the defendant in small claims court? (not a facetious question – I’ve only been to small claims once, never sued a corporation)
They’d either have to spend more than the cost of the ticket to make the court date or default. Might not get him his money back but there’s a certain vicious justice, at least in my peabrain.
“I understand Delta must have restrictions and expiration dates for credit; “
…I don’t. They get a free loan of the money. Just like store credits, I think there should be a law against credits expiring at all. He should be allowed to apply the amount to any flight he wishes, and simply pay the difference if there is one.
If I received a credit I would make sure to find out when it expired. By not finding it it’s his fault that he didn’t use it when he should have.
Oh and for all those “common sense” people…have you any idea how many people must make requests like these every day? Delta cannot (and should not) be forced to honor every request.
@kepler11: Your arguement MIGHT have some merit if the airlines didn’t consistently overbook flights. If I buy a ticket to a baseball game, I’m GUARANTEED my seat. Not so with airlines.
@rellog:
It is not “a free loan of money”. Apparently the OP bought a non-refundable ticket and was able to get an extension by presenting a letter from his doctor. The problem is that the OP thought the extension was 1 year from flight date not purchase date. Given the confusion, & lack of documentation from the airline to the OP on this credit, I am surprised that Delta got anal about him being 13 days past the 1 year.
I’m with the OP here – been in a similar situation and yes, the airline I flew was not clear about the expiration date – only when I double checked the date did they inform me the credit is 1 year from issue, not original flight…. I agree that many customer reps are not well trained to know the significant difference and it sucks that Delta is not honoring the voucher.
To quote 4chan…”we aren’t your personal army”
I’m tried of people just not liking an obvious standard practice and thinking they are special. Then they cry “OH YEAH, WELL I’LL PUT THIS ON THE INTERNET”!
There’s lots of stories of people generally getting screwed over. Then there’s this idiot. Hoping we’ll all get outraged, call Delta, and tell them we’ll never fly with them again because they didn’t give some slapnuts his ticket after a year.
Man up.
@homerj: Even if we’re women?
Anyway. The point of consumerism is to advocate the consumer. It is simple good business. If businesses don’t care to do the simple things that guarantee goodwill, shame on them. It’s sad and ignorant that many businesses and their customers believe they are on opposite “sides” of a zero-sum game. But even if that were true, what side are you on, anyway?
(Advocate FOR the consumer.)
@speedwell: Well, this is something he should have clarified when he called either time. When they said “within one year” his next question should have been “the booking date or the travel date”. He just assumed, and assumed wrong. He now expects Delta to cover for his mistake. I know the first thing I ask after I hear something along the lines of “for one year”, I ask “one year from what”?
I just didn’t like the tone of having others be his personal army in the second letter and now the posting to Consumerist. It wasn’t Delta’s fault–it was his.
@homerj: Sure, sure. So where on the ticket was it written, again?
@homerj (also @kepler11): I’m sorry I disagree. This is a big problem in not just the airline industry, but in many. Consumers have to learn to either ask hundreds of follow-up questions or become lawyers and read every line in 100+ page documents. The companies have the resources, manpower and should have the expertise to walk the customer through the details they need to know.
Instead, we often see the companies decide that the place to cut corners is in dealing with the customer. So we have these stories where poorly trained customer service staff cause bigger issues that could have been avoided.
Also, kepler11, I do agree with speedwell in that your initial posting (and I’d venture to say your other postings since) was condescending. Seems like you should apply for a position at Delta, assuming you’re not already working there.
@homerj: You have one year to enjoy your commenting privledges before you get banned.
Now — and I’m very serious — assuming this conversation took place, would you dumbly ask “From right now (when it was said) or from when I first registered?”
If you say the first option, you are a liar.
I am with speedwell and others in that this practice is deceptive and should not be tolerated. Hell, on one of the few flights I was on (American Airlines), they were so overbooked several people had to stay behind for an extra day. So no, I don’t think allowing a rebook would be out of the question; after all, it’s free money for them (especially if they overbooked in the first place).
Even if not, they only lose money if it was a full flight in the first place, and even then only if it was exactly full. If there is one free space or one overbooked person, they lose nothing.
This is bullshit and this guy should get his damn ticket refunded or rebooked. There’s no way of looking at it aside from this that isn’t “Oh those poor airlines, boo fucking hoo”.
They should change their policy because of of their passanger’s medical condition? What’s it mattter WHAT happened to him? He’s more important than someone who missed their flight because of a cold?
I can see both sides of the issue… Personally, I think that there should be a clear, bold, highlighted, underlined, size 16 font expiration date on the vouchers.
But, as it seems that there wasn’t one, Delta should suck it up, give the person their free flight, and ensure that its the last time it happens by revising the clarity of their vouchers.
The airlines have found themselves in a really crappy situation BTW. Between the TSA’s inconvenient safety precautions, the rising fuel costs thanks to America’s War on Terror and declining dollar, and powerful unions demanding -understandably- beneficial agreements for their members… the airlines are being squeezed from all sides. Really, the airlines are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.
This lung-collapse guy deserves a break, but so do the airlines. Come to think of it, we could all use a break.
How often to people get a collapsed lung or medical emergency? Pretty darn low probability.
Delta, you and your bureaucratic mess can go shove it.
@ConsequencesIX:
And when you consider that he went through a potentially life-threatening ordeal, thoracic surgergy, and has thankfully recovered, how significant is $365 in all this? He ought to count his blessings and move on.
I’ve been screwed by “time limited” vouchers and credits too. When they give a credit, they should give you hour money back, period, otherwise they should just say it is non-refundable, and keep the money. Anything else is just posturing: “oh, look how costumer friendly we are: we gave a credit although we were not obligated.” Yeah, whatever. What you did, dear airline company, was to pretend to refund the money when in fact you did not.
It is pretty disingenuous of them that they pull this kind of crap and then ask us to petition our representatives in congress to save the airlines.
i agree with him that it’s an institutional problem…and it’s the same problem with all of them. they don’t really care to refund money, only take money. that’s why you sit on hold for 2 hours. that’s why when i called AA for a refund after all their flights were cancelled due to their wiring problems, i sat on hold, eventually hung up, only to call back later and get messages that refund department is only open from 9am-5pm. oh, but the flight booking dept is open 24/7. imagine that. you shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get what you deserve and that should be their problem to fix.
“We realize you expect to receive accurate information when you call us.“
No crap?
His fault end of story. RTFM
@SacraBos: …It’s different because they have the exact same flight day in and day out. If the Mets played the Dodgers every single day at the same time, you’d probably have quite an easy time exchanging the ticket for a different day….And for a better “example”, if I buy a movie ticket for a specific movie at a specific time, and barf up a lung, I’m 100% sure I’d get my money back (and have for much lesser reasons), so that I could hopefully see the movie in that theater at a later date/time….
That is true, but the analogy is inapt. It is not the frequency of the event that determines whether you should be able to miss it and get back the credit, but rather how perishable, exclusive-use, and irretrievable it is. The baseball game and movie you use as examples rarely sell out, and are of low value, and most importantly, one person’s use rarely prevents another from using it (except if it’s completely sold out).
Airline seats on the other hand, are highly valuable, and one person taking a seat often means that another cannot use it. For that reason, if you miss a flight, on many routes, you have prevented someone else from having that seat, and should you not have to have some restrictions on whether you can expect a refund or how you can use the credit that they allow you to have even though you missed it?
A better analogy would be a ticket to the World Series, or a movie ticket to the night of a Hollywood premier. Would you expect those to be “reusable” if you missed the event?
@Alger: Your well-thought out response is, frankly, a load of BS. I don’t feel sorry if the airline has to carry a payment on their books. Excuse me, but don’t they MAKE money by holding on to a customer’s money until the flight?… And what happens if somebody buys a ticket eleven months in advance, and then gets sick? Does that make it reasonable for them to only have ONE month to rebook? That seems a little out of line.
First, I didn’t give the explanation of the airline wanting to clear liabilities after a year for the purpose of justifying their policy or making it seem right. Reardless of the reason behind it, the point is that you accept this time limit when you buy the ticket. What is there to complain about if you accepted it? You could’ve sought out an airline that had a different policy.
If the person bought 11 months in advance, then that’s that. We all have had things that didn’t work out that we planned far in advance. Just because you planned it so far ahead, doesn’t mean that people treat you differently. Maybe he should’ve gotten travel insurance for something that far off, since that is what that service is for — the unexpected — a lot can happen in 11 months. Who is to determine that 1 month is “out of line”, or not? Would 2 months be ok? How much then? You see, so we go by the rules.
If Delta feels like being nice and giving this guy a break, then fine. It is a relatively rare case. But I would not be surprised if they didn’t, especially given his 2nd letter that exposed his true nastiness and lack of knowledge. Some customers a company is better off not having.
@legwork: a better analogy would be a roofing company that accepts payment but decides they don’t want to honor it because the roofing shipment was damaged and couldn’t be replaced before their fiscal year end. Oh, but it was in the fine print. Both cases are built for company convenience and are anti-customer.
No, that is a completely wrong analogy.
Everything about this story is the customer/passenger deciding not to take his flight (regardless of what reason). In that act, the customer single-handedly backed out of the contract. The airline is giving him 1 year to use the credit, which they do not have to do.
So tell me, how is the airline being anti-consumer here?
@thesabre: So, you can book tickets up to about a year in advance? So, if I booked a ticket today, July 12, 2008 to travel sometime around June, 10, 2009, how would Delta then issue a credit if something went wrong? If I had a heart attack or collapsed lung in like March/April 09 and had to cancel this flight, would I be S.O.L. since the furthest they can give a credit is to July 12, 2009?
You should buy travel insurance then.