We have not flown since March of 2020 and I have been reluctant to fly anytime soon, even post-vaccine, unless absolutely necessary. Now I see this was wise, after receiving schedule changes from Delta today for two necessary trips in October that we are looking forward to — a wedding in Ithaca and a bar mitzvah in New York City. Both schedule changes were not great. I tried calling Delta for help with rescheduling and got a recording that my wait time was…8 hours and 52 minutes.
I thought the “basic fare” meant I could make changes to my ticket with out a fee but apparently not — even though the airline made the change, not us. (This still doesn’t seem right and I’ve looked back at the language from Delta when I bought the ticket and it’s NOT right. We bought our basic economy tix on March 23 — so they should be refundable and changeable, with no fee:
FROM DELTA: Updated as of March 3, 2021
Yes, you can. We understand that your plans may change, to continue simplifying travel, we have eliminated change and cancel fees for tickets originating in North America (excluding Basic Economy tickets purchased after March 30, 2021, which are non-refundable and non-changeable).
By eliminating change fees, you have the flexibility to change the date, time or location of your trip without a fee. Sometimes, your new flight may cost more than your original flight. In this case you would need to pay the difference in price.
MEANWHILE….The website said my only option was to cancel and get a full refund. I decided to keep the Ithaca flight – even though we now have a 3-hour layover in Detroit (maybe I can meet up with my dad at the airport?) – because there were no better options. Meanwhile the flight cost us $358 when booked a few months ago. If bought today, it would cost $908. So I guess we were wise to book ahead. I also had to rebook my car rental to adjust the pickup and drop off times – maybe I was lucky the price for the rental only went up $12?
With the NYC flight, Delta appears to have gotten rid of one of its two direct flights (the early afternoon one) from Des Moines to LaGuardia. Instead of rescheduling me on the other direct flight (at 6 a.m.) Delta rescheduled me for a flight at 10 a.m.-ish with, again, a long layover in Detroit. This time I opted to cancel my rescheduled flights and rebook (for the same price) with the 6 a.m. direct flight, which is not my favorite hour to travel but I’m thinking direct flight is better than ever right now, given the high likelihood of cancelations. Friends who recently flew to see their son in Alaska from Des Moines – had problems with every leg of their trip (three flights each way).
Meanwhile I’m braced for future scheduling changes….
TakeBetsywithyou 