We received multiple reports that a huge Schedule Change Saturday is underway. And this one is particularly insidious.
Not only are Delta Air Lines flights involved, but we hear Air France, Virgin Atlantic, and KLM are in on the action, too.
Departure and arrival times, flight numbers, aircraft, and seat assignments are in flux.
“This latest barrage of schedule changes with SkyTeam carriers even caught us off guard!” point.me‘s Miles Jackson told me.
“We are seeing an unprecedented amount of schedule changes this year,” he added. “This situation arises because the airlines are trying to maximize their airline utilization during this ‘post-pandemic’ time.”
If your Delta itinerary changes by 120 minutes you’re eligible for a complimentary itinerary change to something that better suits your needs if a Delta schedule change consists of at least one of these criteria:
- A delay of 120 minutes or more
- A change in the routing of a scheduled Delta flight which adds one or more stops to the original itinerary
- A change in equipment from Delta Mainline to Delta Connection carrier
- Any change that causes a misconnect
- If a flight cancels and no comparable or acceptable routing is available within 120 minutes
Source: Delta.
If your schedule change isn’t quite two hours, it can’t hurt to call Delta and ask for a different itinerary. Though Delta reps don’t seem to have the leeway they once did to make changes.
Make sure to jump on that — especially if you strategically select where you sit (bulkheads, exit rows, lucky numbers, etc.) before someone else takes your prized seat.
I’m hearing from people who schedules now are prohibiting them from making connections. Others have experience aircraft changes that screwed up their seating plans.
PSA: Let point.me Deal With These Headaches
Here’s an advantage of booking mileage runs and award trips through point.me: they deal with all this crap so you don’t have to.
“We monitor every single flight we sell through our partner ticketing agency for schedule changes, cancellations, and even aircraft swaps,” Mr. Jackson told me during a two-minute break between fixing a client’s reservations. “That’s another reason to leave your mileage run and award trip planning up to a professional team dedicated to you.”
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What’s going on with delta and the 767-400s are they parking this bad boys for now? My flight from JFK to GRU is now from JFK-ATL-GRU but on an A330-300. And this changed happened two weeks ago.
At least you’re on an A330. My flights got knocked down from 767-400s to 767-300s.
DL canceled SLC-FAI flight and was trying to route me vis Seattle but it’s a misconnect. Got DL on phone in like 10 minutes. Tried to force a long stopover in Seattle and they said it would be additional $393pp lol. Managed to route through MSP on a single connection.
Was speaking with a Delta rep and evidently 700,000 passengers got schedule changed this weekend (for future dates). Once you hit 30 days before your flight the schedule is more firm.
WOW
Another first for me with Schedule Changes. Delta bounced me off a flight that delayed 28 minutes and put me on one 5 hours later in the schedule change. I had a confirmed RU on the original. 5 hour delayed plane, too. But, when I asked to be put back on the original flight number now delayed 28 minutes, I lost my RU and was put in middle seat of Comfort. Think Delta regretted confirming the original RU and figured to bump me to less popular flight (due to time) and have an extra seat to sell? Watch out on RU’s.
@Aland – They will fix. Ask for supervisor. Once RU cleared it sticks with you even if they have to oversell RU space. Don’t give up. HUCB if you must.
No luck. Multiple calls and supervisors. One Diamond Desk agent even tried multiple supervisors. Here’s the rationale. I was upgraded on a CRJ900 (hour flt) then a main line. (Obviously, that’s what I wanted to used my RU for). CRJ900 was changed to CRJ. Computer changed to next available itinerary with both flights upgraded which meant mainline went from 3:20pm arrival to 8:20 arrival. I needed to stay on 3:20 arrival. I fly lots of flts on CRJ first then RU for the next flt. Early plane had 4 1st class seats and 8:20 has 11. Delta would not let me be reinstated to 3:20 arrival with RU, despite being confirmed prior to schedule change. Multiple tries. Multiple Supervisors.
@Aland – Delta has a new word(s) for loyalty… it is NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!
…and if you don’t like that… how about 500,000+ Skymiles for a RT to Europe (while we block ALL of the partner award seats that we devalued twice during COVID)!
Remind me why I keep flying Delta?
I understand. 2.5M on both AA and Delta and about to retire. AA Platinum looks a bit better than Delta Gold. Delta is more dependable, but with increase in AMEX credit card fees, about to reconsider. Oh well, days of 90,000 business class are way gone. Thanks, Rene!
ATL-SCL went from daily to twice weekly. Also downgraded from Premium Select to comfort +. (767 to 330). Any chance Delta considers comp D1 due to schedule change (days) + product change?
@Tony – Highly unlikely. If you paid for PS then you should be getting money back. You can always ask so do try.
Oh, THIS is interesting- help me decipher this.
ATL-MAD in economy, 9/17-9/26, both nonstop flights. I have had seats selected for a couple of weeks and have been watching. The outbound flight has shown 134 available seats and the map was wide open. Today, all the economy seats starting row 29 forward, all C+, and D1 are blocked off. On the return, the last few days have shown a wide open plane but no available seat standby numbers. Today, my seat assignment is gone. Are they filling up my outbound with a reroute cancel from somewhere else and cancelling my nonstop back?
Possibly. Or it’s just Delta IT…
I’ve generally found Delta’s change policies very friendly if there is any change in their schedules. Had a flight booked from JFK – LAX via SEA for 8500 miles. 2 weeks before the flight, schedule changed from 3 to 4pm departure and was able to negotiate change of dates and route for a day earlier and non-stop to LA. That non-stop flight booked straight up was 28,000 SkyMiles or $315 one way.
Yup. They cancelled my return nonstop flight from Madrid. It no longer appears on the website to book as a new ticket. Sigh. I paid extra skymiles to have the nonstop both ways. Current plan is to take whatever new flight they give me and ask for 33,000 miles to be deposited back to my account for the difference in nonstop good flight times vs. now- unless anyone has a better suggestion?
@BrookGirl305 – Don’t expect much of anything. Delta customer service seems to be really bad just now (even for Diamonds). My guess is they will change you but not give you any miles back.
Kinda hard to make plans when they do this bait and switch. You paid for a direct flight then you get moved to a layover that doesn’t coincide with the event you’re going to. Friggin scam as they sit on your money soaking up interest.
Yes, the schedule change nightmare indeed! On my JFK/TLV (via Detroit/CDG) business class, the portion from CDG/TLV was downgraded from Business Class to Economy! Yuk!
Well, they did it again. RU cleared throughout original legs. Delta computers changed to much earlier flight and I had to change the “change” to the following morning to make meeting. Delta did not honor the RU. Last time, when I asked, they refunded my upgrade $’s and said it was a mistake. Now they have denied RU and want $600 to upgrade despite only 2 in 1st class. I’ve asked via “comments” what the policy is. We shall see. (All that said, there is really limited alternatives to Delta based on dependability of getting there. I am beginning to wonder how much international fares supported domestic flights as we are not getting the same service for $’s that we used to.
Chris – if this is a new post (dated 9 July 2022), why are all the comments from a year ago?
Thanks
@Benjamin – Schedule change Saturday happens almost every week with Delta but some weeks are really bad. The blog has a running post about SCS and is often updated.
Understand, thank you
Under the circumstances you describe in the post, are you able to cancel for a refund to original payment method? Or only redeposit as eCredit?
@opposite – You can always call and ask and many times yes you can cancel and get funds back especially so if you booked say 1 connection and now have 2 etc.
Connection flight from DTW-IAH was cancelled after Labor Day. Took me 3 hours with a rep to make the change. You would think I was asking for an exception. You CANCELLED my flight
It’s an embarrassment that this is the service to. Diamond
Delta has become a nightmare. I’m Diamond, 2M miler, and have been a loyal Delta customer forever, but this is getting silly. Booked 8 First Class seats to Las Vegas in February for a trip in October. It’s a surprise, so I booked 2 passengers on one itinerary and 6 on another itinerary and linked the two. Booked early to be able to book seats together. Since February they’ve changed our flights 4 times and each time they screwed up seat arrangements, i.e. entire party was no longer togehter and even couples were separated. Each time I’d go in and correct the seat assignments. Then, Saturday Delta changed for the fifth time. This time they added a connection (2 stops instead of 1), separated couples again, and on one leg only had 7 seats available. I had enough and called Delta. Agent was very helpful, but took an hour to get a single stop and all 8 of us seated together. However, having to leave at 6 a.m. rather than our initial departure of 11 a.m. Now, I just pray that they don’t change again, because each time they change there are fewer seats available and fewer flight options.
How about a really positive comment! my wife was flying from fort myers, florida on saturday the 24th to cebu, philippines on delta in delta comfort from rsw to atl and then premium select from atl to icn, korea, then onto the philippines. we were notified in the afternoon on friday the 23rd that her delta flight of 15 1/2 hours from atl to icn was delayed 5 hours. it screwed the entire schedule up and she would miss her flight from korea to the philippines. i waited an hour to speak the international delta desk. their initial response is they could put her on korean metal from atl to icn and that would save the day, except, that would be straight coach. i indicated to the agent that that really was not fair as we had paid $1,100 for the one way flight there in premium select and couldn’t she somehow be put in korean air business? (actually, i paid myself back with ultimate rewards points so it was actually a free ticket). she put me on hold, came back and said it was my lucky day. no she could not do that on the n/s flight from atl, but if my wife was willing to fly atl to sfo and then change to korean metal, she could upgrade to 1st class the entire trip. we jumped at that offer. and she still make her original connecting flight in korea and the flight time was less! so, hats off to that agent. i got her name and wrote a compliment message for her to delta on the website. she went the extra mile. and, ps, that ticket was $11,000 one way if purchased!