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The premium airline strikes again?
A family on paid Delta One tickets was reportedly downgraded to coach at the last minute. And there’s a lesson some flyers can learn from this.
Redditor Veelangs posted:
At the airport Delta one tickets I bought for my sister’s family were suddenly economy seats and D1 ticket and the agents made them sit in economy
byu/Veelangs indelta
I scrolled down the thread and learned the family was involuntarily downgraded because of an apparent last-minute aircraft change. (This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve heard of such an incident — that apparently happens with some frequency?)
Veelangs noted down-thread, “Their original seats were 5b/5c/6b/6c. The complaint department just called me and told me that there was a computer glitch of some sort and the seats got reassigned.”
Veelangs wrote that they received the fare differences (“Roughly 2300$” per ticket) plus 200,000 SkyPennies. We don’t know if that’s 200k per traveler (which it should be!), the group as a whole, or just to Veelangs.
Before we go any further: we don’t know the departure and arrival cities (and/or countries — which could be important, i.e., EU261 compensation), etc.
The below exchange between Veelangs and esbforever brings us to today’s issue at hand.
esbforever: They gave you the fare difference for the prices when you booked? Or today?
Veelangs: It’s supposed to be the day of booking so we’ll see how accurate that is
esbforever: But how could you be expected to know? You basically have to take it on faith, and they’ve already told you their system is subject to “random glitches”. Nobody writes down the economy price on the day they book. The whole downgrading process is a disaster.
Veelangs: Absolutely. Everyone in the sub sees the flaw here it’s extremely frustrating
So, let’s put ourselves in this situation. We’re basically accepting the airline’s word as to how much a coach seat cost on the day we purchased a premium seat.
Especially Delta IT — which never has any problems, right?
So, what are we to do?
Document the Fare Difference
This is one of those things that may or may not be worth your time. But it certainly might be if you’re dropping big bucks on premium tickets. (Using Delta as our example: Delta One, First Class, or Premium Select ticket purchases. I guess Comfort+, if that’s how you roll.)
Find the one-way fares for flights on your itinerary. Take screenshots of each and store them somewhere you can find them later. (Hopefully, you won’t have to find them later!)
Fate forbid that you’re downgraded to coach, you’ll have an accurate figure as to how much the fare difference really was on the day you booked.
I’m not calling Delta a lying bunch of liars. (But you’ll forgive me if I’m a little paranoid on behalf of our blog’s great readers and my family.) The fare difference certainly could’ve been $2300 in Veelangs’ situation.
But if it were significantly more, I’d certainly want to know — and prove it.
What do you think about this situation?
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This is extremely frustrating and extremely scary, to say the least!! This airline needs to get sued so they stop making bonehead moves.
It’s “scary”??????????
One needs to set aside time each week (I do it on Sundays after schedule change Saturday) to review all upcoming flights, times, aircraft, seat assignments, etc. so any issues can be dealt with well before check-in. By calling in and escalating issues in advance – especially with applying RUC/GUC and seats on partner carriers – I can minimize the risk that I am the one who is involuntarily downgraded.
I fly overseas 2-3 times a year and always in D1. I am old and fat now with a bad back and a gimpy leg. I honestly wouldn’t be able to fly economy on a 7-9 hour flight. This scares me to death. If it ever does happen to me, can I request a later flight in D1?
Unfortunately, there is no limit to the lies an airline employee will tell a customer, no matter what your status is. Another way to be proactive to these situations is to use the paid service of Expert Flyer. Thanks for the tip about recording the coach price when purchasing premium seats.
This same thing happened to me on an AF flight from CDG to Boston back in September. I raised holy hell at every opportunity, with everyone telling me that I had to take it up with someone else. Finally the buck was passed to the gate agents, and at the very last minute a seat opened up. Thankfully it was a decent one, too, b/c I chose my original seat meticulously.
Even though I knew EU laws protected me from getting stiffed financially, I still didn’t like the idea of sitting in Y for the long trip (I’m 6’5″). And I couldn’t wait for a later flight as I had to get back that day.
Google flights has the price history of a flight but I don’t think you can access it afterwards
Same thing happened to me on DL a couple of years ago. Worst part is that while they downgraded me as a non-status pax from my paid F seat, they were keeping an upgrade list with Medallion members and showing 1 seat open for upgrades. I pent hours on the phone and airport and got it eventually sorted out, but this never quite sat right with me.
I have been in this situation multiple times and do indeed document the coach price at the time of booking, at least when I can remember. You can also get historical prices on expertflyer.com, although it requires a paid subscription. I have gotten a fair resolution with AA just by calling and asking them to look up historical fares, but you have to get a good agent. For sure you must advocate for yourself in this situation, nothing good happens otherwise.