A couple of days ago I wrote about my intention to cancel my upcoming trip to Florida. The coronavirus situation has gotten much worse, and I felt it wasn’t the right time to take a vacation. There is too much going on, and each day brings about more bad news. This just so happens to be the second time this particular getaway was cancelled–so it really sucks.
Booking a trip often involves a lot of moving parts–flights, hotel, car rental, boarding my dog, transportation to the airport, ‘hold mail’ request with the post office, and so forth. The same goes when I cancel a trip. I went through the checklist, and each step went smoothly–except for one. I booked the two economy flights with Delta. I used 29,000 SkyMiles plus $11.20 per ticket from New York’s JFK to Fort Lauderdale’s FLL. Not a bad deal at the time.
I know Delta published a travel waiver due to the coronavirus outbreak, so I assumed this process would be a breeze. Delta also has a robust website and helpful customer service agents. Whenever possible, I prefer to do things online instead of dealing with a person on the phone. I know there are many people out there who would rather talk to a real person, but that’s just my preference. I like to see what is in front of me on the screen and not rely on the person on the other end of the phone to click the correct keys based upon our conversation. When mistakes happen, they are more often made by people and not by computers.
Anyway, two days ago I log onto my Delta account to cancel the flights, and the final step in the process was requesting my credit card information for the $300 fee to redeposit the 58,000 SkyMiles. WTF?
Delta had issued a travel waiver. According to the waiver on their website, I had the option to either reschedule the flights or cancel them entirely. I certainly had no intention to fork over $300 to save 58,000 points. The SkyMiles have a value of, at least, 1 point: 1 cent. So 58,000 points are worth at least $580–but paying $300 to save those points was ridiculous.
My other option was to reschedule the flights for a later date. I assume that the coronavirus situation will subside by the end of the year, so I tried to reschedule the flights for the first week of January 2021. However, I kept getting this error message.
I retried this process several times with the same error message before resorting to my last option–a call to customer service. Delta was experiencing a higher than normal call volume and the wait would be in excess of 4 hours. I’ve never been asked to hold for over 4 hours–but I’ve also never dealt with a pandemic either. These are tough times, I get it. I don’t have status with Delta, so I don’t have access to those special direct lines for their elite passengers. I’m not sure if it would’ve made a difference, but I was at their mercy at this point.
What I like about Delta (American Airlines does this also) is they give you the option for a callback instead of waiting on hold. I waited 4 hours. No callback. I waited 6 hours. No callback. After about 8 hours, I called Delta again. There was a recording stating they were having technical difficulties. Arrg.
This went on for a day and a half before I finally received a phone call from Delta. The agent apologized and said that they were swamped with so many calls that it crashed their system. Understandable in these circumstances. The good news is the agent redeposited all my points and waived the $300 fee.
The last step in the process was complete and my trip is officially cancelled. Although I’m happy that I haven’t forfeited any money, I’m still disappointed. I’m not upset because I had to forgo drinking cocktails and burying my feet in the sand, but because of the horrible circumstances that caused me to cancel my trip in the first place. Hopefully, one day in the not-to-distant future we can raise a glass together when this terrible virus is behind us.
Have you had any problems cancelling your plans since the coronavirus?
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