Questions and Answers

Hi Lucky,

I am considering booking a flight to Sydney through Virgin Australia directly (I have some credits I need to use – via the “dreaded travel bank” for a prior disastrous first class experience I had with them). I am a Delta Medallion Platinum and my wife who will be traveling with me is a Delta Medallion Gold. As I understand it, I would not receive much FF benefits on a VA operated flight. However, there is a leg in my itinerary that is a Delta operated flight (but ticketed through Virgin Australia). Would there be any chance of getting a seat upgrade on this leg of the itinerary since it is a Delta operated flight? How would air miles work – would it be given to Delta or to VA Velocity. I am just trying to figure out how VA views Delta medallions since they are now close partners.

[USER=2261]@careofme[/USER], FF miles would be credited to whichever loyalty program you designate on your reservation. If you put that into your booking your reservation should come up on Delta and you should get all Plat benefits.

Thanks……If ticketed through Virgin Australia, and Delta FF number / loyalty program added to reservation, do you think the itinerary would show up on Delta’s website (if Delta operated flight)? I wonder if as a Plat I could exercise my benefit to select an Delta Comfort+ without charges….

It might, not 100% sure but it should be very easy to get your DL record locator from VA and add it to your DL account.

Okay here is a follow-up…

So I booked my the Delta operated Virgin Australia flight through the VA website. The ticket took a few days to show up on Delta.com. I am a platinum elite plus and my wife if a silver medallion elite plus. When I went to select the seats for the flight (all Delta metal) I usually have no problem upgrading to a seat on Delta Comfort (for example, if I booked a seat in economy). However, when I attempted to do it I got the following message:

“[B][SIZE=4]SELECTING YOUR SEAT[/SIZE][/B]
You purchased the Main Cabin experience and may only select the associated Main Cabin seats.

If you are a Medallion member and wish to upgrade, please manage your complimentary upgrades through My Trips.”

I went to “My Trips” and clicked on the “Upgrade to Delta Comfort” button at the top and it opens up to the seat plan. However, when I click for an upgraded seat I get the same message! It appears to be on a loop.

So I called the Skymiles customer care. They told me that since I was flying with a Silver Medallion on the same itinerary, upgrades would clear at her status 24 hours before flight departure. I never remember this ever being a problem before. Is this something new or only with Virgin Australia code share? The customer service representative claims that this rule will change “in the fall” and that I should try back again soon.

Do you or Lucky have any idea what is going on here?

[USER=2261]@careofme[/USER], I believe the agent is correct in this case. There are more details here: [URL]http://goo.gl/wGJkEA[/URL]