Delta is at it Again!

[Hopefully]

Delta changed both of our flights for October this weekend. I actually expected it, given their reputation. It is why I check on line each weekend. When I said that Delta was infamous for this, the agent I talked to responded "You're right, I can't even defend us". We are flying from BOS to MCO.
All of our seat assignments were gone, as they also changed the equipment to an MD 80 (A smaller plane).
Our outbound flight was only changed to 20 minutes earlier, great by me, I will be there 20 minutes sooner but our return flight was changed to over 3 hours later. Although we will make the most of it it actually is not great for us. We will not hit our house until close to 11 PM, and I have to work in the morning.
We originally had a 3:45 flight arrinving in BOS at 6:43 - Perfect. That flight number was changed to 12:05 departure, which is too early. The only other choice now is to depart MCO at 6:05, almost when we should have been landing in BOS on the original flight. They actually totally eliminated the mid afternoon flight, but since they retained that flight number on the earlier flight it does not appear to be "cancelled"
When I called this morning to get new seat assignments, there were only 5 seats available on the flight home. The only 3 together were in the Exit row, and he did give those to me.
So Beware of Delta Flight changes. I was not notified, I lost my seat assingments and the new flight is virtually totally booked with extremely limited seat choices.

 

[Kath2003]

We flew BOS-MCO and our flight time "changed" 6 times - three times by 15 minutes or more, and three times by less than 5 minutes

 

[dis-happy]

Who are you travelling with? They won't allow children to sit in the exit row.

 

[Hopefully]

I am trqaveling with DH and D Adult S. He actually asked me the ages of my traveling companions first. I told him we were all adults and that is when he booked those seats.
Thanks for the heads up though

 

[kymickeyfan717]

Delta changed my flights for Oct as well. I checked them last night (not sure what made me check it but glad I did). They changed both by inbound and outbound flights. Inbound - they had me scheduled to have a 25 min layover in Atlanta befire my next flight. Like that is possible in Atlanta's airport.

My flight leaving Orlando was the kicker. My flight from MCO to Atl arrived at 12:45 pm, but my flight from Atl to Louisville (final destination) left at 12:15 pm. That was really going to be a "good trick" to catch that flight.

I called Delta last night amd they were able to get me on some different flights. The funny thing is the flights they put me on are not even listed on their websites. Neither were the "bad" flights they changed me too. Go Figure. At least for now, I have flights but going to be checking every week until I leave .

Kathy

 

[LBL26]

They did the same thing to us on our flights in August.

Booked in January for the 12pm flight out and now they changed us to the 8:20am. Not usually an issue, but some in our group have a late night wedding the day before and this will be a hassle for them with the early flight. Not to mention haviang to change the car rentals times and kill 4 hours before we can check into our Villa. I think the worst part is the lack of notification to people when they make these changes. We also had to rebook our seats. Luckily we were able to keep the same ones. We will definitely watch our reservations like a hawk from now until departure day.

 

[Snowysmom]

I check my Delta reservations every day. You never know when there will be a surprise. I really don't like it when they change the flight time by 10 or 15 minutes, the seat assignments disappear, and you have to call to get them back. I have had good customer service with them so far (knock wood) so that is a plus.

 

[bamagirl@hrt]

I booked our flight with AmEx reward points. They sent me an email notifying me of the change, NOT Delta. My flight out is 5 minutes earlier. No big deal. My flight home is now 6:10pm instead of 7:50pm. Not a huge change, but I love every minute I have in WDW. Now I've basically lost 2 hours. That's a bummer! I just hope it doesn't get moved any earlier!

 

[ImprovGal]

Thanks for the heads up!
I have a Halloween trip flight booked on a Delta skymiles award ticket out of BOS. Both of my flights were bumped up a little earlier (I'm actually glad for that). While my online reservation indicated that I'd lost my seat assignments, the seat map showed them still unavailable and all it took was a quick call to Delta to reset my reservation to show that I still had 'em.

 

[bfila]

My flights for Aug/Sept changed over the weekend as well. Trip out was fine, but the trip home left us with a 4+ hour layover in Atlanta. Called and got it changed easily.

At least they're good to work with you.

 

[INdisneyfamily]

It's not just Delta. Northwest has changed our flights for June twice since I booked them. Now they are no longer direct which is a bummer.

 

[BigTigger]

I used to be a big Delta/Song fan, but after they publicly stated early in their bankruptcy that they weren't going to provide priority service to Florida from Boston anymore (too competitive), I moved on. I still have 400K Skymiles to use up, but I've been booking a ticket here and there and expect to have them all used up in a few years before they expire. I've had a few good experiences with AirTran from BOS to MCO (their day of travel biz class upgrades for $50 are great if you need legroom like me), SWA from PVD and BDL to MCO and TPA and JB from BOS to MCO. They way I figure it, it isn't worth the many flight changes to book Delta when they have lousy service to Florida. When they had the good sized Song planes with seatback TV's it was worth a few flight time changes given the service and the relatively cheap prices. At the prices they seem to start from ($177 always seems to be the 11 month fare) and the frequent changes, it just isn't worth it. JB isn't any cheaper, but at least they keep the schedule as is 95% of the time. SWA has been giving great dings from PVD and BDL to TPA of late, so that seems to be the cheap airfare pairing to take advantage of. Best of luck on your trip and remember to check Delta weekly for changes.

 

[bgdiznee]

Just be aware anyone flying Jet Blue. They changed a lot of their flight times last friday for Oct. My DD at least got an email from them stating the change and a confirmation of their seat assignments with a request to reconfirm everything with JB. This was really important as she is flying with her DD and of course they need to be seated together. I can't even find my Delta flight on the web site schedule anymore for our Oct trip. Its still listed correctly when I check "my itinery" on their site but not on their available booking list. This does make me nervous given their history and rather cavalier approach to customer service so I plan on calling them just to verify I still have a flight!

 

[seashoreCM]

It is my belief that,

1. If you telephone almost immediately after a schedule change and the flight number is the same, you will get back your seats when you ask.

2. Instead of just re-requesting seats, you can get switched to a different bookable flight you hand-picked if the cumulative time change from original reservation is more than about two hours.

3. If you do not telephone in promptly and the flight number did get changed, your chances of getting changed yet again are greater.

Disney hints: http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/disney.htm

 

[DISNEYLOVER70]

Delta is a rotten airline with rotten customer service. Sorry for such "foulness" but we just got back and had a big mess going from Rochester NY to Orlando.

I booked our flights 9 months in advance. Wanted the earliest flight out and get as much time at Disney on our first day. We were supposed to arrive in Orlando at 11:03 a.m. Bought Disney tickets for our arrival day and had dinner reservations at 6:20 at 1900 Park Fare. We were delayed about 10 minutes in Rochester to "accomodate other Delta customers who were on a different flight that had problems". No big deal or so I thought. We arrive in Atlanta at 8:55 a.m, just 10 minutes later than scheduled. By the time we got off the plane and to our connecting flight gate, the attendant was taking "stand-by's" on to the plane. It was 9:20 and the plane was scheduled to leave at 9:30. She told me and my other 7 family members and 3 other people who were also on our rochester plane, that we had missed this flight and we would have to go to another gate to get on the 10:30 plane. We hadn't missed it. Before she took on 2 of the stand-bys, I told her that we were just getting there from our Delta plane that was delayed and she told me too late and took the stand-bys on the ramp to the plane and shut the door. I wanted to hurt that woman.

So we book it to the other gate for the 10:30 plane and get told the flight is full that we won't be boarding that one either. So I said to the attendant, what are we supposed to do? We are traveling with 4 children who are now crying because they don't think we are going to make it to Disney. She told us to "hang out and wait for another plane to get on stand-by". The guy behind me says "Yeah, that is what they told me YESTERDAY, I am still waiting".

I went to the Delta Customer Service desk and used one of the courtesy phones there and spoke with a rep there. She was apologetic but basically said that it was all part of travel and even though it was Delta's fault, there was nothing she could do. She could get us on a plane to Tampa and we could rent a car to Orlando, at OUR expense. All the while, I am thinking, where is my luggage right now?

After a lot of heated discussion, she put all 8 of us on a 3:30 flight in first class arriving in Orlando at 4:45. She acted like she was doing me a favor We ended up at our resort at 6:00 and had to pay for a taxi to get us to our dinner reservations at 6:20. Another 25 bucks shot. Along with the disney tickets we didn't get to fully utilize. I told the woman at Delta that I paid $900.00 for these tickets, booked them 9 months in advance, Delta holds up my plane for 10 minutes, and we arrive at the gate before the plane leaves, and it is "too bad" for us?? She said, "basically yes".

I know this happens all the time with all airlines, but the way Delta handled it, from the idiot at the gate, whose name I will be reporting to Delta this week, the other idiot at the 2nd gate who made it clear she could care less, to the rep who acted like I was asking for the world to get on a plane, I will never fly with them again. Oh yeah, before the got me on the 3:30 departing plane, she told me all she could do was give us each $100.00 travel vouchers, which is only good on future travel with Delta, I told her that she could keep because I will never travel with delta again, she then found the 3:30 plane to board us on

The drama, sorry, had to vent. I just don't get it. What happened to customer service??? I realize there was not much the gate attendants could do, except for the first one who could have taken off the stand-bys and held the plane up for 5 minutes to get us on, but didn't want to be bothered, but their attitude about it was the real kicker. At least SOUND sorry for goodness sakes!!!

And then to have Delta offer us champagne on our return home flight to celebrate their coming out of bankruptcy. I passed.

 

[seashoreCM]

>>> foulness

You just have to plan longer connection times. It is still my impression (impression since 1989) that one in four flights arrives more than 15 minutes late.

And you still have to be at the boarding area 20 or however many minutes the airline says you have to.

You were supposed to leave the connection point at 10:30 and ultimately did so at 3:30. This does seem like a long time but IMHO is within tolerances for a missed connection.

As far as legal connections (which may be as short as 35 minutes) go, you are permitted to book them and if you miss them then the airline still has to honor your ticket with reasonable dispatch. If you could have hand picked an alternate flight that was not sold out while waiting at the connection point, such a flight would be a good resolution to the problem.

In not too ancient history, people have had to stay overnight at the connection point, missing their first resort night too. I trust that they would still get Magical Express the next day to use what remains of their room ressies although with no refunds.

Could you have modified or had refunded your dinner reservation over the phone from the connection point when it was questionable you would make that?

 

[LOVETHATMOUSE]

Add my dd and I to the list! We had a 5:35 pm from mco to jfk. After seeing this thread 5 minutes ago, I checked. They moved us to 3:00 pm. Over 2 1/2 hours earlier. I am now looking at Jetblue to see what their flights are and book with them. What is the change in flight changes that they have to refund your $$?

 

[LOVETHATMOUSE]

Add my dd and I to the list! We had a 5:35 pm from mco to jfk. After seeing this thread 5 minutes ago, I checked. They moved us to 3:00 pm. Over 2 1/2 hours earlier. I am now looking at Jetblue to see what their flights are and book with them. What is the change in flight changes that they have to refund your $$?