When you are delayed in the EU, you are guaranteed all kinds of comps, including meal vouchers and more, depending on how much you are delayed. I had a KLM flight, years ago, where they refused to pay for the delay, but I used AirHelp and got paid (after paying AirHelp a large percentage of the payment for the legal part of the redemption effort). In case you missed it, the current administration in the US is suggesting an EU-type rule should be implemented to protect passengers as well.
As a top Delta elite Diamond Medallion, Delta has treated me outstandingly when things have gone sideways. From hotels to compensation to meal vouchers – it has simply not been an issue, and I have had no complaints in that department. If I were flying nearly every week as I was before the pandemic, this kind of support would have been a reason to stay loyal even with the total and complete destruction of the SkyPennies program.
With all of the above in mind, my fellow FrequentFloaters blogger Mike West shared with me what happened to him recently on a Delta flight (following an amazing Princess cruise) that was delayed. He was, along the way, emailed digital “food” vouchers. Let me explain.
Delta proactively took the step to send him a number of $15.00 digital Mastercards to pay for his dinner due to his delay.
Nice, right?
Now, the digital cards did come with a list of limitations — but they are not that difficult. And there may be ways to tinker with these digital MC gift cards. Take a look:
“Food,” “Dining” and “Restaurants” opens up all kinds of options, and be aware this is not just limited to “at the airport” locations, that is, it is all about the coding if these digital MCs could be used in creative ways? What creative ways? you ask (oh you know you did this inside your head already right)?
Well there are some locations at the airport that may “code” as the above and sell gift cards since you may go to the Sky Club to eat if you have access from any number of travel cards. Then you would hate to see these digital cards go poof so use them to lock in some kind of benefit after your flight.
There are a number of food apps that may accept the digital MCs that will let you load credits into them and code correctly – please feel free to share data points that have worked. Chris shared with me that even nonfood airport locations that do sell food items have worked for him in the past.
Overall, I think we are going to see Delta, and other airlines, proactively move toward the idea of offering more of what the EU already does in an attempt to say something like “see we already do this – no reason to make it a rule”! – René
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Wait what… not American Express… how is that possible
@ryan – LOL yeah I thought about that too.
I received two of these when a recent flight from Fort Lauderdale to Detroit was delayed by 5 hours. I had a paid first-class ticket. I ended up eating in the Sky Club at FLL, but used the $30 in two cards at a store in the airport for souvenir gifts. The problem is staff hate digital gift cards. The cashier had to call a supervisor over who then had to call a manager over to override the register and process the payment. I imagine spending these in an airport, especially in a foreign airport, could be harder than expected.
United doing the same. I received these a couple of days ago for a delayed United flight. 2.5 hour delay, $40 for each person on the itinerary.
My April 1st flight from LAS to MSP was delayed due to weather and I was (nicely) surprised when I found a voucher for $45 courtesy of Delta. It was good though April 2nd. I ended up using it to purchase a restaurant gift card through the Mileage Plus X app (as a Master Card) and used ithe gift card for dinner on the drive home from Minneapolis.
I used the one I received on a recent delayed flight to load to my wife’s Dunkin Donuts account.
@Greg – Sweet data point. Thanks
I got one of these a few weeks ago during an overnight delay in DTW, and was able to load it as a reload on the Starbucks App.
@DG – Another great idea – Thanks!