Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
What is not to love about Texas (Dallas, Texas, that is). I mean, when you find a really good Delta Mileage run starting out of DFW, and can position down on FlexPerks points for free (just had to drive up to AZO to get a sub-$400 ticket), why not go? What could go wrong? I mean my upgrade cleared and I had 1A (one of my favorite seats) on an E175.
Lunch was a pastrami on rye with nice fresh fruit and a triple chocolate cookie (num). Plus I had reasonably fast GoGo wifi and had some time for a visit to the Centurion lounge in DFW before my run.
And this just kept getting better. TexasYankee, the legend himself, would be flying up to join me for this little adventure that ended up in the Centurion lounge Las Vegas before the run home. When you can visit two Centurion lounges in a day, it’s never a bad thing.
But then our best laid plans started to go, uh, well, south (no pun intended). Sure there was lots of weather in the area but that was not it. Dave and I had both cleared into 1st class on a CRJ-900 and he was in 1A and me in 1B. He was a little sleepy and was out before we even pushed. We did push, a little, and then stopped about 100 yards from the gate. Uh-oh. We stayed there for about 10 minutes. Not good. Then the captain came on and said we had an issue and they were working on it. We had little time to make our connection in CVG on our way to LAS (clearly, the best way to get from DFW-LAS is via CVG on a mileage run). After about half an hour we turned back and Dave woke up curious about what was going on. I just smiled back at him and said we were going back to the gate.
Without going into all the gory details, and as you can see from the final results from the flight above from FlightAware.com, we did not make it to Las Vegas that day nor could we find any other way to make it and get back to Dallas to make our return flights home the next day.
Here is where I can slip in some educational bits because the reason most read the blog is to learn a thing or two about Delta travel and what you can do and can’t do. When things go wrong on flights, you CAN push Delta to give you original route credit (when it is Delta’s fault that is). When it is weather etc. it is much harder. Now here is the thing, you have to fly something to get this. We had not flown anything yet. I really did not care about what I paid for the trip as I had burned a voucher anyway and just wanted the MQMs for my elite status (the only point of a mileage run btw under SkyMiles2015). But that was not going to happen. I was offered, not just a a full refund, but even a small voucher as compensation for the canceled flight. Very nice. And a hotel room as well (more on that in a bit).
So what to do now? Well we could go back to the Centurion, or, we could go for BBQ. We chose the latter and took a very short UBER ride to the Hard Eight BBQ. If you have the time, and like southern BBQ, this place is so close that if you have a few hours between flights you could UBER over, and if the lines are short, eat and get back for your next flight. Something to think about anyway.
The flavors were very good and I am going to make a return visit to the Hard Eight in November before another Delta Mileage run. I also, with instruction from Dave, was told there is no need for sides when eating BBQ since the reason you are there is for the meat. That is if you are going to have a side, make it sausage or brisket? Noted, and I like the way he thinks! 😉
Now for more education. Delta often, when you are getting a free room, does not offer the most glamorous hotels as options (most times). Boy, was this the case this time. I mean this X-Holiday Inn, now the Wyndham Garden Inn North, was really scary. I mean take a look at the decor. Plus, anytime you see painted light switches and nasty water damaged ceiling tiles in the halls you know you are in for a treat. Normally I would have just said no thanks to the hotel offer and asked for an extra voucher for travel in exchange for the free room but since I was already getting a refund, and another bonus voucher for the cancellation, I did not want to push it this time but I wish I had. I will NOT be back to this Wyndham again.
I even did an SDC to an earlier flight that night as I wanted to get home a little sooner the next day. I had to give up my cleared upgrade (they do not carry over on an SDC) but I did clear at the gate.
Overall this was a fun couple of days despite all the issues. But then again a mileage run really is all about the fun. The fun of the travel. The fun of the adventure. The fun of no matter what happens it is “all good” as you are only traveling to travel so when life gives you canceled flights – go have BBQ! – René
Gold-Platinum-Reserve Delta SkyMiles®
Credit Cards from American Express®
Click HERE for more info
Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
That hotel seemed fine except for the weird curtain top with Chinese characters from the mahjong set. Kinda random. And c’mon, it’s a free room to shower and sleep. Do you have to stay at 5-star properties when you travel?
@Ben – This hotel was a 1 star at best. #KeepDescending worthy.
Just a random question: since DL has gone revenue-based, why are you guys still doing MRs?
@M – MQMs are still distance based. See link in post.
To add a few points … when I awoke to find that we were not landing at the next airport but were going back to the gate the “we may have won the bumpertunity lottery” look appeared on both of our faces! As it turned out the end result was similar. This after we hurried up the jetway to be the first to volunteer.
As far as the doghouse hotel that Delta put two Diamonds and a Million Miler in I will add an emphatic BOWWOW! The shuttle that the hotel sent to pick us up from the airport did not arrive after an hour of waiting. That is when Rene the UBER dude had us quickly transported to the Hard Eight BBQ in 15 mins from first call to UBER to arrival at the BBQ joint.
There was another enjoyable part of waiting for the UBER to the Delta Dogdump Hotel was watching all of the planes land at DFW in 35 second intervals (Rene correct that if I am wrong). There was a massive storm coming into the area and we had a fantastic view of the planes rushing to land before a weather delay hit. At every 4th plane a new set of lights would appear against the black storm clouds and seem to float towards us.
Why do we still do MRs? To me when Rene says lets go it is always a lucrative and fun run! Not to mention that this game may turn into Bumpertunity Running!
@TexasYankee – Oh yeah – forgot all that stuff 🙂 :-):-)!