Our HELL with Delta

Sorry about the essay. This is extremely brief and very top level. Where do I begin...

Firstly, they changed the flight seven times from point of booking. We were originally flying to JFK then to Philadelphia. Then eventually changed it to Atlanta (!) with a three hour layover. So we then requested we changed to Newark, with us stopping in CDG which was fine.

My wife called them a week before we flew to ask them about allowances with strollers and diaper bags etc to be told that our infant does not have a ticket. What?! She ‘has a reservation but not a ticket’. How? I have no idea. We actually called upon initially booking asking if everything was okay and Delta said it was all good. So, luckily we called! We were then told because it’s international it’s 10% of the price. Fine. We were on the phone for nearly two hours as they tried to charge us $1,000! Which means the ticket was $10,000! Upon speaking to ‘supervisors’ they agreed to honour our original price. How kind of them.

We turned up at the airport to check in to discover that now my wife did not have a ticket. Her ticket had been voided! We were NEVER informed of this. She broke down crying as our family was being split up with no idea how my wife was getting to America! We had no choice but purchase a ticket for £900 with 30 minutes left until boarding.

We landed in Newark and two of our bags had not made it, one of which being the baby’s stroller. We called Delta and they said it would be with us that night or early morning. Okay, Fine. It never arrived. We called again and they said it was being flown in with Air Scandinavia into La Guardia and will be with us that night/morning. It never came. We called AGAIN saying it was in Allentown (close to where we were staying) and it will be with us within an hour. It came. Wrong bag! Somebody else’s bag arrived with our stroller. Incredible. We were then told it was in fact in Allentown and they will deliver within the hour. Nobody came. That night Delta Luggage Department at Newark called saying our bag had JUST landed in Newark from Paris. So all this time they were literally lying to our faces that they had our bag! It came the following day.

This is all very brief and top level. A lot of our experience we were never apologised to and we are extremely worried that we will not be reimbursed for our £900 ticket, a ticket we had already paid for. We feel our options are so limited as their customer service on the phone is dreadful and you just hit dead ends. Can anybody offer any advice? We’re actually scared my wife’s return ticket won’t actually work but we’re yet to call them to confirm as we’re still in America

Damn Ben, that is pretty awful.

I would suggest going over to FlyerTalk and putting this up on the Delta forum and see what those folks have to say. They tend to know the airline policies inside and out and may have some tips or tricks for getting this resolved. Also, not sure if there is EU compensation for this (tends to be mostly only for delays) but someone may know. If you have Twitter you could always try the social media name and shame game too. One more thing - next time you call an airline, and I mean any airline, if you are getting confusing/conflicting information then HUATA - hang up and try again. Sounds like you got two halves of correct information from two different agents!

Putting your luggage on SAS out of Paris and into Newark would have resulted in at least a day or two of delay as they would have had to fly it from Paris up to a Scandi hub and then over, and they tend to only fly two flights a day into Newark so depending on when it was, you would likely have already missed the flight for that day and potentially the next.

Finally, infants under the age of 2 would not be ticketed as they are seated in the lap, although they would need to have a reservation I believe for the manifest.

Delta's policy regarding the 10%:

https://pro.delta.com/content/agency/us/en/policy-library/reservations-and-ticketing/infant---children.html

International Taxes & Fees—For infants under the age of two and held in the adult's lap, the cost is usually about 10% of the adult fare plus any international taxes and surcharges, which can be significant.

Delta once left me in Greensboro, TN because we didn't have enough fuel to get to Atlanta... from Chicago, causing me to miss my onward to London. I feel your pain.

Well that sounds shite.  Lots of great advice from Bertine!  Name and shame them. Good luck!

Thanks so much Bertice! I’ll go onto the site soon

They lost my luggage and took off into zero visability, hearing the captain discussing how terrifying the takeoff was on the way out since I was waiting for a wheelchair. Never again. They don't care about their customers or staff!