Questions and Answers

So, I found really good deal on a RT First Class Los Angeles to London fare on Google flights. Had American Express travel book it (LAX to Seattle on Delta, the rest on Virgin Atlantic). The AMEX agent couldn’t call up the Virgin seat pages because “it’s a Delta ticket and I’m on their site”. All good. Until I got the email confirmation which had the Virgin seats in Premium Economy. Couldn’t move the seats up online, so I called AMEX (at 10:30 PM Pacific). After a 30 minute wait to talk to someone, they called Delta….who called Virgin….they all talked. And agreed something was wrong with the codes (G) between the two airlines and it was a Virgin Premium Economy ticket. But they didn’t know what to do. By now it was 1am, and they asked me to call back first thing in the am (Eastern) when the desks that deal with these problems are manned. Did that….and was promised a call back. Which when I got, asked me to wait another day so that the Delta folks could figure out what to do. Both I and AMEX were telling them that I had a confirmed 1st class confirmation from them, and if they mispriced the ticket, they still needed to make it good.

Next day was the weather problems in Atlanta and Delta was unreachable.
Next day, they announced it was a “known issue” and they’d waive the change fee but it would be another $6,000 per ticket thank you. By the way, it’s still showing that I’m confirmed in 1st class all the way on the Delta site and that I’m in Upper Class on Virgin (but with Premium Economy seats).

Eventually I called Delta directly (over an hour to get to a supervisor) who, after saying “this is the stupidest thing ever” when looking at the coding, finally repeated the “waive change fee” offer. When a different Delta call came back (the international desk) (Since I had requested a call back when I was on the phone with a service center in the Philippines who would not transfer me to anyone but kept insisting that her service desk told her I needed to talk to AMEX), the international person threw AMEX under the bus indicating they put in the wrong codes.This despite me still showing as confirmed on both web sites.

By the way, I offered to move to Delta metal, or even change days figuring they’d try to make it good for a 30 year customer who frequently has Gold status. Nope.

End result, canceled the ticket and rebooked (Biz class) on someone else.

Not a satisfactory experience.

Didn’t mention that I booked hotels, etc assuming I actually had what I bought.

Is this typical treatment? My travel agent felt Delta would usually work with them when there were problems.

Welcome scv

Unfortunately, this is a well documented issue on FlyerTalk. The problem arises because Delta does not have a true Premium Economy class, so the fare codes do not line up when booking as a partner on Virgin metal.

It is a known technical issue, so I am not sure you’ll have much luck beyond what they are offering.

You can read more here: [URL]http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mileage-run-discussion/1833687-not-bookable-vs-sfo-man-1-249-r-t.html[/URL]