How to benefit from schedule change for award using Delta miles
We all know, whenever there is a significant schedule change in reservation, you can ask airline to change your ticket to different flights on the same day for no charge. But have you ever thought about book a trip and intentionally wait for schedule change?
When we plan our award travel, we always want to get there in most direct routing, but with “wonderful” Delta miles award system, sometimes you just can’t because some route never release seats in “LOW” inventory. the best example is JFK-SFO/LAX in business class.
2 months ago, I was helping someone book JFK-Sydney trip in August for 2 people, the most direct routing will be JFK-LAX-SYD, I was not worry about LAX-SYD because there was V Australia airline, the problem was JFK-LAX. If award involves 2 different level(low+medium) in a one direction, the award will be priced as sum of two levels. In this case, 230,000 miles(150K for LAX-SYD+ 80K JFK-LAX) per person. I then tried all different possible connection and found out LGA-IND-LAX was in low inventory. Since the trip was for this August and back then still 10 months away, I told her just book as is and waiting for schedule change.
1 month later, I log in the trip again, the trip had become something I couldn’t even recognize, a quick phone call changed trip to JFK-LAX-SYD direct. If your trip is still far away, maybe you should think about this option.
Illini Chen said,
How do airlines define a significant schedule change, which allows we to change flight or even airport on the same day?
Troy said,
@Illini, any change caused miss connection, illegal connection time, segment canceled, time change(even if it’s too small, you can still try to negotiate)
Also, the original booking was LGA-IND-LAX-SYD, so any above mentioned changed to any of these three segments, you can change them all.
Illini Chen said,
Is this only for award tickets on Delta Airlines? How about a purchased ticket? I searched “schedule change” on google and found that different airlines have different policies.
Troy said,
@Illini, it’s for all tickets, but each airline has policy slightly diff than others. but those caused miss connection, illegal connection time, segment canceled, big time change, you will able to change the routing.
JohnnieD said,
@Illini, I had a schedule change on a Dividend Miles award that caused me to have a 45 min connection in MUC,which is less than 1 hr, which is illegal per *A. I called and they changed it with one less flight and 4 hrs less travel time………….
My “Schedule change” method for Delta award has been working pretty well! - TMtravelworld said,
[...] months ago, I talked about using “schedule change” to make your itinerary better for Delta awards, it has been working exceptional well lately. What I [...]
al613 said,
Great post. I do it all the time on UA to get MORE segments on a revenue ticket
Weekend Round-Up: Best of the Travel Blogs said,
[...] couple of ways you can use an airline schedule change to your advantage – stay tuned for more tips on [...]
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