I don't travel as much as a lot of people I know who travel for work. This said, I definitely travel more than most people I know who bankroll it themselves. Over the years, I have amassed a rather large number of frequent flyer miles. Since for some ungodly reason, airfares have been really out of control I chose to use some of them to travel home this weekend. A flight from MCI to DTW typically costs under $200. As of late, I'm lucky if I find anything under $350. For me and the hubs to fly out there, that's $700! Uh, this isn't exotic Cancun we're flying to, people...it's Detroit. Yes, home of economic ruin and lots of murders. Why on earth would anyone pay that much to go there? Lame.
My first attempt at buying our tickets for this weekend was a disaster. I logged into Delta's website so I could buy my ticket using SkyMiles. Then I went to buy the hub's ticket with my credit card. I certainly filled out his information correctly. However, when I got the receipt and itinerary emailed to me, I noticed that the passenger info on both tickets I bought was MY name. Uh, I don't need two tickets for myself. Is there no error checking mechanism on their website? WTF??! Anyway, I call them and they say it's a "bug" in their system. If I'm logged in and I try to buy a ticket, it overrides the passenger info with my stored passenger info. Great. I ask if they can switch the name. They tell me it's a non-transferrable ticket but they'll refund the ticket and I cacn go online, make sure i'm logged out, and buy it again. Despite my slight irritation that I have to now go do this whole thing AGAIN, even though it's their stupid faulty website's fault, I was polite and said fine. I go online again to buy the ticket. The fare had increased by $79 dollars for Sudhir to be on the same flight as me. HUH? It had been less than 10 minutes at this point? I refused to pay over 4 hundo to go to the D, so I chose to put Sudhir on an earlier flight. This was inconvenient, at best. Now my dad would have to make 3 separate trips to the airport to drop us all off.
Whatever. I dealt with it. I'm relatively patient...sometimes. The day we're scheduled to depart, I receive an email saying our flight info has changed. We were originally to depart at 1:45pm on Thursday. Our departure time had been moved to 2:45pm. Okay, no biggie. I can deal with the hour. Then, no less than an hour later, I get another email saying that our flight had changed again. This time, to 4:30pm. Okay, fine. Then yet ANOTHER email saying 5:30pm. Okay, so now we're going from arriving in Detroit at 4:30pm to arriving at 9pm. Gross.
Keep in mind that I spent $350 bucks + 35,000 frequent flyer miles to get on this damn flight. Not only is it late, but they won't give us seats. We didn't end up getting seats together so we had to switch. I try to get on Sudhir's earlier flight so both my dad and Sudhir won't have to make two trips to the airport. They said it would be a $150 dollar change fee to get on a flight that's only 3 hours before my booked flight. Apparently they don't "DO" standby anymore. Here's a hint, Delta. I had 35 friggin THOUSAND miles that I traded in. Clearly, I'm a decent customer. Maybe you should try to have an ounce of compassion and make up for being totally incompetent in website development. It's not MY problem you have a flippin BUG on your FLIPPIN WEBSITE. Eff you.
So I get on my 12:05pm flight. Again, they didn't give me a seat. I finally get my seat and it turns out it's the aisle seat in the dead LAST row of the plane. I think it should be against regulation to be that close to the restroom. Not like it's bad enough to be in the last row...they had to add insult to injury by not even having a WINDOW in the flipping aisle we were in.
I may never fly delta again once I use the crappy 50 dollar vouchers they gave me for my troubles. I would rather have layovers than deal with this nonsense.
OH...and don't even get me STARTED on the story about buying my friend Em a gift certificate to use on Delta. It's a nightmare. Let's just say that the representative on the phone said that Em had to go to an actual airport ticketing counter to use the gift card. When on earth was the last time a person physically went to the airport with no purpose other than buying a ticket? The 80's???!!!
I'm so peeved, I might actually write a letter and send it snail mail. That's intense.
It's not you! My wife and daughter booked a flight on Delta to visit me in Arizona for about a week, covering July 4th weekend. Their flight was leaving at 3:45pm the Tuesday before the weekend, and they got to JFK between 2:30 & 2:45. She waited outside for about 10 minutes on a long-ass curbside check-in line, but it was such a madhouse, she felt it was unsafe, so she went inside. Inside it was no better--pretty much total chaos of lines with no clear signage as to what lines were for what. She got on a line and it seemed like everyone she talked to on that line was travelling internationally. Apparently even at big ole JFK all domestic and international flights were on the same check-in line! And these folks were on line to check in for their 5pm-6pm flights! Finally she thinks oh shoot, let me just go to the kiosk to check in. She does that, but by the time she's over there, it's about 2:55, and the kiosk says it won't let her check in with bags within an hour before the flight. She gets the attention of someone working for Delta and he looks at her at about 3pm and just tells her flat out, "Ma'am you've missed your flight. You're not going to be able to check your baggage in time." So after all that, she has to lug her bag, the car seat, stroller, and the baby back outside, only to catch a cab that got stuck in traffic on the way home. $80 cab ride from JFK to the Bronx.
ReplyDeleteShe was able to get a new ticket and come here the next day without any additional drama, but she basically said that Delta was dead to her. Her new motto is "Neva Delta".