CHANGE OF PLANS. 5 STARS TO DELTA CUSTOMER SERVICE REP

My family of 4 was supposed to fly to Salt Lake City tonight and go skiing for a few days. I have the large Delta voucher that I was using, as well as Marriott points to stay in a Residence Inn. So it was going to be a nice minimal expenses trip. (we were planning on skiing some of the smaller resorts to save on lift ticket prices.)

Unfortunately, our 9 month hold puppy broke off her leash on Dec 23rd and got hit by a car. After a hospital stay and surgery, she is coming home today! This means we are moving our SLC trip to March over Spring Break.

Changing the Marriott Reservation was quite easy online. We actually used a 7 night certificate we received from doing a points plus hotel package to get the Southwest Companion Pass back when this was still an option. (120,000 southwest points, and 7 night cat 1-5 Marriott stay)  Our certificate was immediately put back into my account. (note this was not a great redemption value, but expiring in March and needed to use it.)

I tried to change our Delta flight online and knew I would be responsible for a $200 per person change fee. It would not allow me to do it online as all the new flights for March that came up online were basic economy.  I priced out my ticket online with Main Cabin X and L fares and knew that my new flight was cheaper than my current flights, but after the $200 change fee I would still be responsible for about $30 per person. Not too bad though as that would be my only expense for moving this trip.

I called the Delta Gold line, and it was a 30 minute wait so I opted for them to call me back. 30 minutes later a CSR called me back (I believe Heidi) and was very helpful in getting my new reservation and I told her the reason why we are postponing. I informed her I tried to do it online but only Basic Economy seats were coming up and she said that sometimes happens. She looked and could not find the same main cabin seats that I found online on the return flight but said Delta Comfort seats were open and that I would receive $110 voucher per person back.

Say what- refund? I did a double take and reconfirmed this, and she said she would waive the change fee! This really made my day as I went form thinking I would have to pay about $120, to getting $440 in vouchers back. I didn’t understand why she couldn’t see the main cabin seats on the return flight, but I didn’t care at this point.

Now the hard part is figuring out how to use these vouchers as we have another $110 in 4 peoples names. Even if they are thrown away, its still better than what was planned.

Thank You Delta!

I am about 15k miles short of getting Platinum status and was originally looking at doing a 14k mileage run and then using this trip to push me over the edge. Thank goodness I just said I would be fine with Gold next year.