Delta Glitch Blocking Air France/KLM Business Class Awards

I was trying to book a reward ticket to NBO, and Delta keeps saying no availability via KLM or AMS, despite flying blue showing plenty of classic award space! very frustrating

Good luck defending Delta @ the FT University debate. Delta = Skypesos no matter how you spin it.

This Delta IT glitch must be affecting your award booking service. What’s the alternative ?

Same for me. I found a day with LAX-AMS availability on Flying Blue but no help from Delta.com or even the Elite desk. This is not good. Did the NWA/KLM joint venture have a termination date?

Two years ago, my auto insurance company started raising rates incessantly and without any rational justification. After several 40% price increases, I bailed and went to their competition. Later I learned that they exited the insurance market altogether in my State. It made me wish they were ethical enough to just say they don’t want my business anymore rather than applying pain and torture to make me leave.

Seems like Delta is taking the same approach. This loyalty thing costs them a lot, but driving their most loyal customers to United (in my case) is going to cost a lot more than their short-sighted bean counters are anticipating. Platinum since the early 1990s, I’m getting my ducks in a row to move everything to UAL if they pull the trigger on this JetBlue-style loyalty program.

I don’t understand how and why this is a glitch after two weeks. It’s one thing if their IT systems don’t allow you to search and book online, but it’s inexcusable if DL agents are not able to book these flights over the phone.

Last year when we booked business reward tickets to India, the DL agent had to interface with AF to release the seats. Why can’t they do the same thing now?

If you believe this is an IT ‘glitch’, then I have some excellent ocean property within driving distance of PHX that you’d love.

Follow this thought: prepare for massive devaluation of program by restricting partner redeeming, this preempts any #burnbabyburn scenarios.

While the ethics of this may be debatable, what is not gray is the legality, and perhaps it’s time for some Attorneys General to start asking questions- does this constitute deceptive advertising? Or will they get away with it since you can book economy seats?

Well played, Dulta, well played…

That was relatively well documented to be Cathay’s fault as they switched reservations systems, as far as I know. This is not one of those things

i disagree with all your comments, but, in any case, please, be smart enough to know that introducing the “Gov’t” is the worst possible next step.

I hate to say this, but it does seem a bit odd that just before they destroy the value of their miles, they restrict the type of awards that folks with lots of miles are most likely to use. Of course, we understand this is an “IT glitch”. Why do I get the feeling that if there payroll system experienced this “glitch” it would get fixed more quickly? Because it matters to them that payroll runs, but hurts them if you start burning miles.

Maybe DOT complaints would encourage faster resolution

I’m not sure that’s true, it sounds like someone’s giving you the run-around. I’m relatively familiar with the SkyMiles award rules. What it sounds like is the Delta computer not pricing things properly because you’re attempting to connect at a “spoke” instead of at a hub. It’s likely failing because you’re connecting at a city they don’t list as a SkyTeam hub city, because SEA and LAS aren’t Delta hubs. This problem happens any time you try to book Vietnam Airlines awards through SGN or HAN too (or I read it used to).

My suggestion is call again, with flights you know there’s award space on, and when they quote you the price, suggest that it seems high, and ask that they get someone to manually price it. You may have to try this a couple of times. The group that is best at this is “IRRRES.”

If they come back ask them exactly which rule is being violated (and they should know if they’re manually pricing it). If they can’t tell you hang up and try again. Until someone actually does what you think they should. I’ve been fed the same “routing restrictions” BS before, but it really just means MPM. SEA-LAS-HUX is just about as direct as humanly possible so it’s probably not that. It’s likely just user error.

TL;DR Call again, ask them to manually price the award, try and speak to IRRRES. Good luck!

[EDIT] OH! And let us know how it goes!

From the other end of experiencing Delta, I’ll just add that I’m not surprised. Based in Europe, I am generally flying KLM, AF & Delta as little as possible – basically because in 3-5 years of being a Flying Blue member, I have never yet been able to use any of my miles for an upgrade.

Some times it’s been because of the restriction that upgrades to Business need to be from a full-fare economy ticket. This conflicts with our company travel policy that mandates cheapest seat available – but also makes Star Alliance / SAS look better as I can gate-upgrade from any seat as long as there is space.

But even when my ticket’s been upgradeable, I’ve run into walls – phoning to book being told to do so in the airport, then at the airport being told that I should have phoned (yes! twice!), having a phone confirmation and then either just being told “sorry, but no” in the airport or being rerouted followed by the message that even if the new route had upgrade spaces, Delta couldn’t because they had no IT-link to Flying Blue… the list of obstacles has been endless.

So after a couple of times sitting in long-haul AF and Delta planes looking at empty business class seats that I was refused access to – which in my book is the same as telling a customer who’s waving his money in front of you that “sorry, but we do not want to sell to you” – I am through with them. Only flying any of the Flying Blue and associates when it’s the only routing available or that I can’t get a Star Alliance trip through the travel policy with some consciences left.

In the original article about skymiles changes, it was titled a “rumor” and you later made comments at the bottom that it was unlikely to happen, in part because of how it would negatively impact AMEX. Now, you call it “likely huge changes (read: devaluation) coming to SkyMiles.” Have you learned something that now makes you believe the rumored “huge” changes are “likely” rather than unlikley?

the award space is only for long hauls. if you try to book a short haul european flight, you are still able to do it…. bizarre….