Anyone with half a brain knows Delta has completely broken their award booking page this year. Anyone who says it is better is misleading you. The simple proof of the removal of the award charts shows just how bad Delta is and that they just don’t want to or don’t care about fixing what is broken (at least we still have copies of the award charts to reference here on the blog). But does it rise to the level of needing to complain to the DOT of pricing issues that could land Delta in hot water and possibly face big fines? You be the judge at the end of this post. Let’s use a really simple example.
Say you live in the home of Delta, Atlanta Georgia. You and your wife / +1 want to go to Paris this summer. So you search flexible dates from ATL (Atlanta airport) to CDG (Paris airport) for two people in business class one-way. The cheapest / lowest results on the new award calendar shows you the cost is 80,000 points on a number of days. But is that the lowest price and the correct price?
If I search ATL to AMS (Amsterdam) I come up with a much lower price, that is the old “LEVEL 1” pricing of 62,500 points one-way in business class. And here is where it gets interesting. Let’s say I keep searching from AMS to CDG.
Shocking. Any day as far as the eye can see we are finding Skyteam partner awards at the “LEVEL 1” pricing of 25,000 points one-way in business class.
Now here is where you need to understand airline math and I CAN PROMISE YOU if we put 100 “normal people” in a room 99 of them would get this wrong (I have not tested but would like to one day). If we take 62,500 “LEVEL 1” pricing and add 25,000 “LEVEL 1” pricing (and less than a 24 hour connection internationally) we end up with a GRAND TOTAL price of 62,500 points one-way business class, that is, no extra charge for that extra leg in a “legal” connection.
Before Delta broke the award booking page you could simply go into the multi-city search and choose the right flights and Delta.com would spit out the correct price and the correct flights. Yes, a bit of a pain, but it WORKED and it priced things correctly. Now we just get the incorrect error you see above that the flights are not offered or sold out. Both are total bunk and incorrect.
If you call Delta and spoon feed them the flights you have found, they will put them in and they will price out correctly and you can book them. But you should not have to call to get this done. Delta.com should work, at least with the multi-city tool as it did before.
So now back to my question I opened up with. Delta has been beyond reprehensible with the removal of the award charts on Delta.com. They have a broken award calendar that does not show the TRUE lowest prices. The multi-city page is worthless and broken. Does all this rise to the level of DOT pricing complaints? You tell me? – René
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I’ve said it before. I think the proper avenue is a complaint to the consumer protection division of state attorneys general.
I’m a little concerned that these “tricks” and level 1 pricing exposures by Rene may prompt Delta to raise the price.