Delta Air Lines has announced an end to those mighty annoying fees for booking award travel at the last minute. However, they will charge a $150 dollar fee for changes to award tickets effective today. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a decent trade. I can’t think of any time I’ve ever changed an award ticket….but that’s not to say this won’t be an issue for many. Other changes (some positive, some negative) include:
- Platinum Medallions can now make unlimited fee-free award changes and redeposits
- The award redeposit fee rises to $150 dollars, but is waived for Platinum and Medallion members
- And low and behold, Delta is going to re-engineer the award travel and booking process and calendar on Delta.com. (They admit it’s screwed up!!!!)
- Delta will implement an upgrade policy for Gold Medallion and higher members with Alaska Airlines.
In my opinion these are positive changes to the SkyMiles program. There’s quite a bit more than the items I highlighted. Read the entire summary here.
[…] yesterday came word that Delta has, in fact, ended those close-in ticketing fees. These are the annoying surcharges for booking award tickets within three weeks of travel, and had […]
Phenominal! With 400,000 miles about to “expire” due to the Northwest merger and steal deal, I was hoping they’d change it before we used them to go to Australia or Europe again. Having my own travel company is incredible, but the perks are the miles, package deals and discounts that I can get for me and my clients. If they take that away, we are no longer the best deal for clients! Who’d use us for our expertise and knowledge? LOL.
I’ve never attempted to redeem a close-in ticket because the fee was never usually worth it. Maybe things will change now.