A couple of weeks ago, Delta’s website suddenly stopped pricing stopovers on SkyMiles award tickets. While I wouldn’t have been surprised if Delta eliminated free stopovers on roundtrip tickets with the 2015 SkyMiles program, it was a bit disappointing to see them make this change without any advance notice, let alone acknowledgment.
A Delta spokesperson quickly clarified that there was no change to the stopover policy, but instead this was due to a change in IT at delta.com. He explained that award tickets with stopovers could now only be booked by phone. Reading between the lines, this seemed to suggest that Delta was preparing their IT for the 2015 SkyMiles program, and that this would mean the quiet death of stopovers on award tickets (which I think is sort of fair, since they’re adding one-way awards in the process).
My real issue wasn’t the change as such, but rather the practical implications of the way it was executed — Delta was knowingly charging customers the wrong prices online. Is it even legal for a company to knowingly charge customers the wrong price?
With that in mind, I do have to give Delta credit, because they’ve now updated the award search page on delta.com to reflect that awards with stopovers can be booked online. When you click on the “Multi-city” tab, you’ll see the following message:
To book an International Award Ticket that includes a stopover of more than 24 hours, contact a Reservation Specialist at 1-800-323-2323.
At least they fixed my biggest issue, which was them knowingly charging customers incorrectly.
I suppose in the end this was a useful warning. If you want to book a roundtrip SkyMiles award ticket with a stopover, make sure you do so by December 31, 2014. 😉
(Tip of the hat to Mac)
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