Delta Plays Keepaway With Buddy Passes, Messes Up Honeymoon
Melanie and her National Guardsman husband snagged some free Delta passes that they thought they'd use on their honeymoon. Delta had some other plans in mind and things didn't work out so well.
Melanie explains in her now-open letter to Delta:
Thank you for taking the time to read about my very disappointing experience with Delta Airlines. One of my husband's colleagues (Frank) in the National Guard worked for ComAir and allowed us to
purchase tickets to Europe through Delta's "buddy pass" program.In April of this year, my husband and I found out that his colleague was no longer employed with ComAir in Cincinnati, Ohio. We found this out from someone at ComAir because we needed to change the dates of the tickets and we could not get in touch with Frank. The woman I spoke with at ComAir told me that I had better call Delta Reservations to see about a refund because she didn't think our Buddy Passes would be valid any longer since Frank was no longer with the company. I called Delta immediately and asked how I should proceed to get refunded for my 2 tickets. The agent that I spoke with told me that the tickets were valid. I asked him if he was sure and he said, "yes, I'm looking at them right now". I was thrilled because I had looked that day on-line and the tickets were priced at nearly $800 a piece that day. I asked the agent if I could change the dates of the buddy pass tickets (my husband is in Officer Candidate School with the Nat'l Guard and the school dates were changed) and he proceeded to re-schedule my tickets. I thanked him, hung up, and almost immediately received an e-mail confirmation. I've attached two e-mail notifications to this message dated April 14th. This date is nearly one month after Frank was no longer working for ComAir.
Based on the information provided by the Delta Agent, we proceeded with our plans (which was our honeymoon) to go to Europe. We spent countless hours designing our trip, booking hotels, reserving a car, making dinner reservations, etc. We contacted our friends, who worked our visit into their schedules. You can imagine the time spent going from Frankfurt to Wurzburg to Augsburg to Munich to Austria to Garmish to Fussen to Lietchenstein to Lindau to Constance and finally to Zurich.
I called Delta on Tuesday, July 21st to check on the status of the flights and I was told that my tickets were not valid. I explained my situation; that I was 2 days out from our trip and that buying tickets at this point would be severely cost prohibitive. I was told that there was nothing anyone could do and that I should issue a complaint on line. I was also told that it would take several days for this to be answered. Obviously, I did not have that kind of time. I hung up, called back, went through the whole thing again. In tears, I called my husband and went to meet him so that we could call together. After going through the whole scenario again, we were put through to a supervisor (Greg) in Salt Lake City. He also explained that there was nothing he could do. He went even further to say that he had spoken with all three of the employees that we had spoken to and of the three, two had differing opinions concerning our situation. Again and again, I was told that there was nothing Delta could do and that regardless of the misinformation, they could not honor the tickets. I told them I didn't have an objection to the tickets being invalid but at least work with me in order to get reasonably priced tickets to our destination; a voucher, a discount, any overture to do the right thing
would have been appreciated but again I was told they could do nothing.I submitted an e-mail to Delta's corporate headquarters using the website that night. Unable to reach Delta's corporate Office by phone until the next day, I spent the better part of the rest of Tuesday night trying to cancel our hotel and ground transportation reservations. Many of the hotels were prepaid and as a result we lost a considerable amount of money due to the inaccurate information provided by the Delta Representative.
First thing in the morning, we called the corporate office only to be sternly told that we had no further recourse nor could they help in any way. Again, I explained that I was a seasoned traveler, that I would never have waited until a day or two before to purchase my airline tickets. In fact, had I been given accurate information, I would have purchased tickets in April when I called for my refund.
While I understand that these individuals were upholding company policy, no one was even willing to admit responsibility for the situation. Nor were they able to offer any type of solution or compromise.
I respectfully request that Delta compensate me and my husband for our losses due to their contribution to our cancelled plans. Furthermore, I would encourage you to look into your business practices regarding the "Buddy Pass" program. An e-mail saying that our tickets were invalid could have been automated to come to the same e-mail that we
were sent confirmations. Given my situation, I will be reticent to use or recommend your airline ever again. I do not have confidence that your agents will give me or anyone I council accurate information. A copy of this message will be submitted to the Better Business Bureau and other versions of it will be put on consumer watchdog sites.
Melanie said she posted the letter to the Delta site, mailed it to the airline's physical addres, then e-mailed a copy to CEO Richard Anderson. And yes, she followed through with her promise to send it to the Atlanta BBB. If she doesn't get her refund it won't be for a lack of thoroughness.
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Comments:
can someone tell me, which airline(s if there's more than one, or any) that aren't total douche-bags?
This is a great letter -- she's very thorough, very polite and has her facts together. Shame they screwed over her holiday. Why is it so hard for airline employees to know their own policies? Or, rather, why are they only well-informed of them when they work against the traveler?
Aren't buddy passes only usable on a space-available basis. Basically -- I thought you aren't confirmed a seat, and just only get to fly if the flight isn't sold out. This is definitely not the route that I'd want to take for a honeymoon.
What were the T&Cs of the ticket?
@toddr4fun: You are correct. You can even be stranded on the return leg of the trip if there is no space available for you to get on a flight back. Getting hotels in Europe while waiting for seats can be cost-prohibitive too.
The problem I see is here the confirmation code means nothing to Delta. Once they confirmed the tickets it should have stayed their tickets. A confirmation should lock the seats down to the people. Better yet, the confirmation should mean they get equal or better seats at that price if Delta has to make a change or else they get compensation.
@bagumpity: Well she's apparently got the email confirmations! I'm not an attorney (I just play on one TV), but if a company says we'll do X and you rely on that to your detriment, and they they don't do X, I'm pretty sure you get to sue for that. Depending on how much they lost in hotel bookings, etc., this may be beyond small claims court (depends on where she lives). And I know it would be beyond small claims if she seeks the "benefit of her bargain." She could probably also try unfair trade practices and get treble or punitive damages (again depending on where she lives).
Sounds like the point of screw-up occurred when she tried to change the dates. I bet if she had left them as-is, it would have gone through ok.
I wonder if the buddy passes are some@ianarnott:
I fly Southwest all the time. They're a great airline.
From 2006, but lots of questions answered about Buddy Passes on DL.
[nonrev.net]
Of note: - Is it only for Standby travel?
Yes, it is only for non-revenue standby travel. As a buddy pass rider, you are at the bottom of the list behind all employees.
@★_red3001: She screwed her own honeymoon by trying to use a buddy pass for something so important to begin with. Buddy passes are the last people on the plane, and if you know anything about flying to or from Europe these days, you'll realize that they are often packed. I'd never, ever, consider using a buddy pass for a honeymoon unless my travel plans were flexible enough to let me sit in an airport for a week at a time.
@ianarnott: British Airways seems to be fairly good. Domestic I'm in love with Virgin America, but they only fly to a few cities so you might be SOL unless you travel coast to coast a lot. I travel from Detroit right now so I'm forced to use Delta/NWA. Even as a plat. elite I get treated like crap once I'm actually in he airport (there's a special customer service phone number for plat. elites). My experience with domestic air carriers puts them in this order: Virgin, Jet Blue (though maybe not in the last year, heard bad things), Southwest (no nickel and dimming!), AirTran, Continental, NWA/Delta, United, US Airways. Yeah, I hate United and US Air, they've both made me never want to travel with them EVER again.
Time to write a song and post it on the web.
"United May Break Guitars, But Delta Breaks Your Heart"
Hmmm, could be a country tune.
This is idiotic. I've travelled on Buddy Passes a ton of times with Delta and if you NEED TO BE SOMEWHERE ON A SPECIFIC DATE OR TIME ON A BUSY ROUTE/TIME DO NOT USE THEM. Buddy Passes are always STAND BY seating. You will usually get the best seats to Europe with them, but you stand the chance of getting bumped off of full flights.
I used a buddy pass on Delta to fly to Europe (to Barcelona and back from Rome) for a cruise and went out of my way to book a flight 3 days before my cruise would leave to make sure that even if I got bumped off 1/2/3/4 flights, I would still make it to the cruise in time. Of course I got on the first flight in business class with the buddy pass. Woot. Same for the return flight.
Yes it is incredibly crappy how this was handled and what the person told her on the phone the first time BUT why on earth would you schedule your honeymoon off of a buddy pass? That's just asking for trouble.
So this person can book all these hotels and other add ons, but not afford pay for real flights?
I guess they will stay in a cheaper hotel next time and buy an actual ticket.
While it is a decent complaint letter, she has absolutely no case. She agreed to purchase a "space available" ticket at a significant discount over a regular, guaranteed ticket in exchange for not having ANY rights to complain, no rights to a seat, no meal vouchers, no hotel vouchers. It is essentially a gamble, and in this case, she gambled and lost.
Reading sooo many complaints about sooo many airlines makes me distrustful of them all & makes me never want to have to rely on them to get me to or from anywhere!
fyi everyone, never use a buddy pass for an important trip or a location that does not have frequent daily flights. you are always the first to get bumped off with nothing more then hope to get on the next flight.
If "Frank" was a real friend, he would have told them not to pin their whole Honeymoon on the expectations of flying stand-by to Europe and have a back-up plan. Any non-rev flier knows that. That was a huge risk on the travelers' part.
However, Delta should have had their act together regarding the buddy pass policies.
Would that have helped? Even the supervisor said he got three different opinions on her situation. They don't seem to be disputing that she received wrong information, just that they should do something about it.
Sad story but buddy passes are non-revenue for the airline and are on a stand by basis. This means that if the plane is ready to depart and there are empty seats after all other stand by's are confirmed, you can go.
Quite frankly using buddy passes on a honeymoon is too risky for my blood. Especially if it involved Europe in the summer.
In my opinion, she has quite a priviledged attitude for someone who attempted to fly for free. I don't see how Delta should be responsible for any compensation.
This is truly tragic. I feel for you and your husband. You were given bad information by Delta's reservation agents. I worked for an airline for nine years, but left 13 years ago. At that time, it was the responsibility of the employee to advise their "buddies" of the terms of non-revenue travel. Any violation of the airline's employee travel guidelines by someone using a buddy pass came back to bite the employee. Maybe this employee did not want to be the bearer of bad news.
Delta could have offered the least restrictive discount fare available. It's unlikely that they would however. Non-revenue passengers are not considered customers, and are not even entitled to file a claim if their checked luggage is lost.
I think your friend really dropped the ball here.
@tungstencoil: At the call center I last worked at, we could get canned for giving unauthorized discounts, even if we could come up with unrefutable logic for this decision. If the system didn't show you were eligible (as I believe Delta's did in this case) it couldn't be done, not matter how much you complained.
A supervisor, where his or her job might be on the line, will usually side with policy every single time, even if it seems the most backwards thing to do.
I would try executive customer service (although the OP did already say she had no luck with corp).
@Saboth: Probably not. Because she got a confirmation after changing the dates. Most likely the tickets would have been canceled either way without warning.
@ianarnott: We've always had good luck with Southwest. <fingers firmly crossed> Fares are reasonable and service has been good ... although the cattle-call approach to boarding leaves a lot to be desired.
@adamt: It doesn't sound like Delta was even offering to let them catch a different flight.
It sounds like you're saying in one breath that it's great because it worked for you, but then calling them idiotic because their ENTIRE trip was invalidated.
Now, if the complaint was just that they got bumped, that's a different story. They didn't even make it to the airport, though.
I'm not sure how the "Buddy pass" works, but is it just an employee can help get tickets for their "Buddy" - and the ticket is stand-by... meaning if there is an open seat, they can tag along for a cheap price?
Well if I was them, I would be calling the airline over and over, tell the sad story - then ask each person they talk to if they will be their buddy to get them seats again.... tell them they will pick up a T-Shirt for them or something.
@dave: Sounds like a great way to book an important honeymoon flight, especially considering the tendency to overbook flights this didn't have much of a chance. I felt bad for the op, but not so much now.
@toddr4fun: Sounds like a great way to book an important honeymoon flight, especially considering the tendency to overbook flights this didn't have much of a chance. I felt bad for the op, but not so much now.
I used to love flying, but with stories like this is it any wonder that I go to great lengths to avoid flying now?
Are the limitations of the buddy pass what actually caused problems here, though? I would have thought that if that were the case--if the flight filled up with revenue passengers two days prior to departure--she and her husband could go to the airport and hang around as standbys; they wouldn't simply be told that their buddy passes were invalid.
I'm not that familiar with buddy passes, so maybe this is how it gets described when you get bumped by revs, but it sounds more to me like there was a bureaucratic screwup and that it wasn't the limitation of the buddy pass itself that got her. (It still sounds like she wasn't aware of the buddy pass' serious limitations, but I'm not convinced that those limitations are what nailed her here.)
@ianarnott:
Jetblue and Virgin America all the way if you fly between large cities. Otherwise, Southwest or maybe Continental. If you have to fly with a major carrier... United has been my best experience so far, but thats not really saying much.
This is why I don't fly Delta.
I feel terrible for the OP.
Southwest FTW.
I feel bad for this couple, but blame Frank! Just because you can't find him doesn't mean that you can't blame him. Frank knew that the tickets would only be valid if he remained employed with ComAir. When he separated from the company, the couple should have been notified that the tickets would not be honored. He knew that!
When they were told over the phone that Frank was no longer employed by ComAir, they should have seen a red flag. When employment terminates, so do perks, like Buddy Passes. As a HR Professional, I know that once termination information is entered, it may take a while for information to feed over to all systems. That's why one person could see that Frank no longer worked there and the other saw valid ticket information.
I wish the couple good luck, but the airline owes them nothing.
www.deltaclippedwings.org/Buddy_Passes.pdf
Rule #2 is fairly clear: "Buddy pass tickets are only valid for one year from the original date of purchase and only if the Primary Pass Rider (employee) is still eligible for pass privileges."
@adamt: Ummm HELLO she had a written email confirmation and she asked twice. What the fuck else do you expect her to do?
I want you to tell me WHY is it the consumer's fault when they ask repeatedly and trust the company to keep it's word and they DON'T, they LIE, and then they SCREW the person they KNEW were depending on them? WHY? HOW?
Screw you and your blaming the consumer, she should SUE their damn asses off, for every penny of lost reservation money, the cost of the whole wedding and yes do the video too and lose them buttloads of money.
Further everyone in the wedding party should sue them as well for good measure.
NOBODY wants to hear rude invalid criticisms from other superior busybody ahole consumers when they are wronged. Consumers should only help each other, not criticize each other. Corporations already have a 100 to 1 advantage, they don't need your help. Just shut your trap.
Yes, the Buddy Pass program is Stand-by tickets. You have no confirmation of being able to fly and so are not suitable for fixed-time travel.
I found a hint on the net that an employee who leaves the company loses the privileges of the program and all purchased tickets must be refunded. It's the employee's responsibility to tell 'buddies' to get their tickets refunded. [Don't blame me - I'm just passing the info along]
I believe that the tickets were valid on Apr 14 because the process involved in removing the leaving employee hadn't yet been done.
@flyingphotog: Agreed. And if he left his job it could take a couple weeks or a month or two before his termination trickles down to invalidate their tickets. Maybe they were still valid at the time she called. Most companies it takes a while before an employee is deleted from all aspects of the company.
While I can understand her frustration, it should be common sense not to use a buddy pass for such an important event. Also, why would you expect a buddy pass to be valid from an employee that doesn't work there anymore? That would like me trying to use my Target discount card from when I worked there 10 years ago. A refund is definitely in order, but so is common sense.
What a well-written letter. I hope it works out.
Frank, the "friend" who got them the buddy tickets sounds a bit dicey. If I got someone airline tickets that weren't guaranteed to be solid on a particular date, you bet I'd tell my friends about it. It seems especially odd that he didn't bother to notify his friends that he had quit the job and that the tickets may have been invalidated because of it. Be sure to thank Frank.
What ever happened to having attrative flight attendents. The ones now days look like Skeletor, Aunt Esther, or Lulu from Hee Haw
@ianarnott: Realisitically you can do all the research you want into which airlines are rated the best, but in the end nine times out of ten it won't make a difference. When it comes time to actually book a flight the real world limitations of where you're going, where you're leaving from and when you have to be there will narrow your choices down to maybe two options, of which you'll pick the cheapest.
Consumers have consistently shown that their main priority when it comes to air travel is low cost. This is why we hear so many CSR horror stories and are being constantly hammered with fees; people have a distorted view of what airtravel should cost and are always appauled that they can't fly from New York to L.A. for $100. The people willing to pay for good service in business or first class get it, the rest are treated like cattle as the airline isn't really making any money off them, so why treat them well?
Is it to the point where you need to have a personal recording of every interaction with a customer service representative any time you do something out of the ordinary?