Last week, I went to Maine to visit Mount Desert Island and to run an Ultra Marathon on Great Cranberry Island.
Both Won’t Run for Miles and I booked an award ticket on Delta: 25,000 miles for New York City (LGA) to Bangor, Maine (BGR). We were supposed to travel on July 23rd, but that morning we received notification that the flight was canceled. I immediately called the Gold Medallion desk, and was informed that three of the four Bangor flights out of New York were canceled. The Delta Medallion representative rebooked us on the same flight for the next day. I was not sure if the reason for the cancellations was related to weather, or to the SouthWest airplane incident, which had closed down most of the runways at LGA, the preceding day.
Won’t Run and I went to Maine the following day. The trip was great – more details to follow.
When I returned home, I received a lovely email from Delta apologizing for the July 23 canceled flight:
| Please Accept Our Apology |
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Dear Ms. Will Run For Miles,On behalf of Delta Air Lines, I would like to extend my personal apology for the inconvenience you experienced as a result of the cancellation of Flight DL6242 on July 23, 2013.I am truly sorry your travel was adversely affected by our service failure. Please know that within the industry, we have earned a solid reputation for our commitment to operational integrity. To that end, each flight irregularity is thoroughly reviewed to prevent a similar occurrence. I pledge to you that we are dedicated to providing the safe, reliable transportation you expect and deserve.We value you as a customer and sincerely appreciate your support of Delta. To demonstrate our commitment to service excellence, as a gesture of apology I am adding 25,000 bonus miles to your SkyMiles account . Please allow three business days for the miles to appear. If you would like to verify your mileage balance and gain access to all of our mileage redemption programs, you may visit us at www.delta.com/skymiles.
It is our goal to provide exceptional service on every occasion, and I hope you will provide us with an opportunity to restore your confidence. Your support is important to Delta, our Connection carriers and our SkyTeam partners. We look forward to your continued patronage and the privilege of serving your air travel needs again soon. Sincerely, |
I never expected this, so I was pleasantly surprised, to say the least. I am a gold medallion, and it is so nice when an airline, such as Delta acknowledges the loyalty and interest of its passengers, and goes the extra “mile,” such as it did here. Won’t Run does not have medallion status with Delta – he received the same letter, except he was given 5,000 miles.
(I apologize for the big blank box in this post – I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it!)
A New York frequent flyer who elegantly combines her passions for worldwide travel, running a gazillion marathons all over the globe and staying fit ... without sacrificing her fancy for good wine and food.
Yaay for a surprise free flight 🙂
lovely $250 in your pocket 😉
actually, I got bumped after the flight home was canceled …
4 yr Diamond member and million miller
On 26th July I was travelling Bus.Elite from DUS to ATL
After a 9hr delay they cancelled the flight, took 2hrs to get luggage back and another 2hrs to get delta to provide hotel
Next day they moved me to a later flight and that was delayed another 2hrs
Received similar letter from Delta saying sorry – but the miles offered stated 99,9999.00 miles to my account
I checked my account but they have only credited 20,000 miles
Still waiting for the rest to appear
wow, that’s a crazy story Mark. Maybe you can use my post as incentive to request 100,000 miles (and settle for 50,000?). Please let me know what happens.
Latest update, no direct response to my email asking where the missing 80,000 miles are, just have the orig. 20k given
But I did get an email saying sorry again and offering $150 in my choice of gift cards – so I select $150 AMEX cash card
20,000 miles plus $150? that’s pretty good. Do you think that the initial 999999 was an error?
So final outcome
I pointed out to them certain EU regulations that we were ignoring and got more
20,000 miles
$150 amex card
and $796 compensation due EU regulations
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The letter should have read 20,000 bonus miles, and a correction was sent on August 12. We’re really sorry for the error. It has been determined you are due compensation in accordance with EU recommendations. I will be requesting a check in the amount of EUR 600 equivalent to USD 796.19. Please allow sufficient time for processing and postal delivery.
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You are very lucky Mark. Quite a few years ago, shortly after the EU regulations were passed, a Delta Athens- NYC flight was declared canceled (after we sat in plane for over 3 hours) because of a mechanical issue (the airline needed to fly in a piece from Atlanta). We were put up at the airport and flown home the next day. I tried to pursue the issue of compensation and the EU Regulations with the airline directly, but they continued to argue that the cancelation event was out of their control, and refused to ackowledge the EU regulations. I would have been required to pursue the matter with Greek EU authorities and it was just too convoluted, so I gave up. I have a degree in EU law, and knew the airline’s interpretation was wrong, but there was little I could do.