Questions and Answers

Is it possible to change Delta flight reservations (purchased with miles) without paying a penalty? If so, how?

I unexpectedly needed to extend a domestic trip by a week and ended up having to pay a $150 change fee (plus additional points for the more expensive flight). Is there a strategy I can use in the future to avoid potential fees? The agent told me the change fee wasn’t possible to avoid when using miles to purchase flights.

Booking a higher fare class that allows fee-free changes.

Or if you have the Amex Platinum card and select Delta as your airline, the $200 airline fee credit would cover this.

Since the flight was paid for with points I don’t think there’s a way to avoid the change fee though as David mentions you can offset all or some of it with Amex Plat ($200), Amex Gold ($100?), Chase Sapphire Reserve ($300) or if you use the Barclay’s Arrival Plus you can continue to earn points for up to 180 days to offset the charge.

[QUOTE=”David W, post: 56311, member: 29″]Booking a higher fare class that allows fee-free changes.

Or if you have the Amex Platinum card and select Delta as your airline, the $200 airline fee credit would cover this.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the suggestions! According to the phone representative, no matter what class fare I purchased with miles, there would be a fee to change the travel dates. I did learn after I posted my question that the fee is waived for Diamond and Platinum Medallion members, so earning status would be one way to avoid this. I don’t fly enough (or spend enough) to make that possible every year, though.

If there is a schedule change of an hour or more on the flight, you typically would be able to change/cancel and have the fees waived. But, that’s obviously a gamble waiting for that to happen, since there is no guarantee. If your flight is way later this year, or even early 2019… it could be worthwhile to wait and see if a schedule change happens.