Delta's Lack of Customer Service Pays Off

Don't ever book your Delta flights directly through Delta!  My story has a good ending luckily, but no thanks to Delta.  This started when I booked some flights for my family's vacation over 2 months ago.  This is for a vacation still over 4 months from now, but I wanted to reserve our spots.  I hated doing it at that time since gas was so high, but the accommodations had to be reserved.  So today I look at my itinerary, not really for any reason other than I wanted to.  And there I found that one leg no longer said confirmed, instead it said contact Delta.  So I called Delta and they said they did not go to my destination anymore.  I asked why they hadn't bothered to notify me, since I've specified I do want notified of any updates.  Their answer was that there is no reason to notify me this far in advance.  Hmmm, I purchased my tickets this far in advance because I want to be sure.  And now there's one less carrier going there so I'm sure its only going to be harder to get there.  But Delta has decided for me that its too far out to matter, even though I've requested notifications.

So next I asked what my options were, alternative carriers or refunds.  Well it turns out they really want to find an alternative for me.  But after checking, since they don't go there now, their idea of an alternative is to go somewhere else.  I told them it was easy to find alternatives with other carriers if they were willing.  But apparently an alternative carrier is not a viable alternative for them, even though they no longer go where they sold me a ticket too.  So that only leaves a refund as an option, which they were happy to do.  And that then allows me to go book my own alternative, averting a potential disaster.  The funny thing is that most of my itinerary is still Delta, and some of it are the exact same flights.  But since gas has gone down I'm actually paying less than I was earlier, and Delta is getting less.  By the way, should an alternative not been easy to find, or not cheaper, it turns out travel insurance would not have covered this.  They'll cover if the carrier goes bankrupt or has a strike, or changes our itinerary during our trip, but apparently is totally acceptable if they just stop going to the location they sold you a ticket to.

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