More Delta Platinum and refund hijinx

Right now all travelers, but especially travel hackers, are juggling even more decisions than usual. In the before time, we might make speculative bookings far in the future as soon as award space opened up for trips we weren’t sure we’d be able to take. Now even a last-minute trip is “speculative,” depending on constantly changing infection numbers and quarantine restrictions, not to mention our own health conditions.

Back in May I wrote a couple posts about cancelling airline tickets for a refund instead of store credit and my plan to use Delta’s COVID-19 flight change policy to lock in a low-cost companion ticket that I hoped could then be used on other, more expensive dates.

As a reminder, the key to that second trick was that travel to any destination, booked before May 31 for travel before September 30, 2020, could be changed to any dates before September 30 with no difference in fare charged. The policy’s intention was obvious: they wanted people to be comfortable booking flights with the knowledge that if they need to postpone their trip they won’t be on the hook for more money. But taken literally, it also meant you could search the schedule for the cheapest available travel dates, then change your flights to any desired dates before September 30, as long as the destination remained the same.

Of course, back in May there was still hope the country would pull together and defeat the virus. Once it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, my focus shifted from getting a deal on a New Orleans trip to getting a refund.

Fortunately, as early as June my outbound 10:14 am flight was cancelled and I was rebooked on a 8:20 am flight, so I knew I was entitled to a refund. With the original reservation dates finally approaching, last week I pulled the trigger.

Don’t cancel your flight, apply for a refund

In the e-mail notifying me of the schedule change, Delta wrote:

“We also understand that your new itinerary may not be best suited for your travel needs and we have the following options to give you flexibility.

• “If you prefer to change your trip from the itinerary listed below, please visit My Trips on delta.com or follow the step-by-step instructions here. If you need additional assistance, please contact us at 1-800-221-1212.

• “If you would like to cancel your flight, the value of your ticket will become an eCredit, and you can find more details available here. You'll be able to use your original ticket number as the eCredit number when you are ready to redeem it by following the step-by-step directions here.”

As you can see, Delta doesn’t even mention the possibility of a refund, despite knowing perfectly well I’m entitled to one. My main concern was that if I canceled my reservation and received an eCredit, that might break the link in their system showing that I experienced a schedule change as well. So instead, I applied for a refund without canceling my reservation. Fortunately, Delta lets you apply for a refund online.

Redeposited companion ticket

My secondary worry about canceling my flight was that the terms and conditions of the companion ticket are crystal clear:

“Cancellations/Ticket Changes/Reissuance: If the primary ticket or the Companion ticket is cancelled, both tickets will be cancelled and the Companion ticket will not be reissued. Subject to the fare rules of the primary ticket, the value of the primary ticket, less a $200 administrative service charge and any fare difference, may be applied to future travel. Cancellations are subject to the rules of the fare purchased. Neither a new Companion Certificate nor Companion ticket will be issued upon a cancellation.“

If I canceled my ticket, I thought there was a good chance I’d be both stuck with store credit and out a perfectly good companion ticket, the worst of both worlds.

Thankfully, a few days after my refund was processed, I logged into Delta and saw my previously “closed” companion certificate had been restored with a reassuring checkbox next to it, ready for use. I recalled that when I submitted my refund request, the confirmation page mentioned in passing that companion tickets would not be reissued “unless they are subject to our COVID-19 cancellation policies.” But of course I didn’t request a refund under their COVID-19 cancellation policy, I requested a refund under longstanding Department of Transportation guidance on flight cancellations!

A classic case of good execution but poor communication.

Conclusion

Obviously we play a lot of games with loyalty programs, so I try to stay philosophical about the games travel providers play with us. Turnabout is fair play and so on, after all. If they think they can get a few bucks more from customers by charging for seat assignments or priority boarding, I’m inclined to say more power to them.

Refunds on the other hand are a real opportunity to put companies’ values (if any) on display, since it’s a situation where they’re the ones in a position of power: they already have your money, you want it back, and there’s no particular reason to believe you’ll spend it with them in the future once you have it back. No one expects a company to be exactly eager to issue refunds, but especially under conditions when customers are clearly entitled to them, I have a lot more respect for companies that issue them gracefully rather than belligerently.

Although Delta could have been more proactive about alerting me to my right to a refund, their simple online form and reissuance of a companion ticket they weren’t strictly speaking required to offer left a much better taste in my mouth than the lecture I got from my Alaska Airlines representative.

Once (if) we get out from under COVID-19, I’ll be interested to see whether Delta continues to reissue companion certificates on refunded tickets. It’s a small gesture, but given the importance of their relationship with American Express, I think it would behoove them to adopt a single policy on companion ticket cancellations — and follow it.