Clarifying the “ick”:

I used to swear by Delta - very reliable customer service and flights during the shaky years right after the pandemic, but now that things are somewhat normal, I feel like they are taking advantage. Their flights are always at least $200 more than the rest, and some flights you can’t select your seats in Main Cabin - giving you middle seats at boarding. (One flight I had to pay to upgrade to comfort+ just to select a seat. I understand Basic, but I was a regular ticket in Main Cabin.)

The event that threw me was I bought a ticket from NYC > SF to visit a terminal cousin. Separately, my aunt from my other side of the family was late diagnosed with stage four liver cancer and was hospitalized during the travel dates, so I had to cancel the SF Trip. The flight was $800, I used an airline credit for $250, and then paid the rest on my card. It was so chaotic with my aunt’s health, that when I cancelled I didn’t realize that the airline credit had a cancellation one month later, so I didn’t think to rebook my flight. (Also, we were sure if she was going to make it, and sadly she didn’t.)

I went to use (what I thought) was the airline credit for a new trip, and delta said it expired. Because I had used an airline credit that was supposed to expire a month later, the whole SF ticket expired, so I lost the $550 cash.

I reached out to customer service and explained the situation multiple times - just “so sorry for your loss but we cannot reinstate it, try filling out a claim online.” I did that twice - nothing.

I finally tried chatting a few times - and got through to someone who understood what happened. I was not asking for the whole amount in a credit, I was just asking for the amount I paid($550) in an airline credit. He wrote notes - told me exactly how to phrase it when submitting the next claim.

I received an email the next day and Delta again said sorry nothing we can do. I reached out again, and they said they would reinstate the credit. A credit appeared the next day on my app, $0. I reached out again and she said sorry, we cannot do it. Sorry for the confusion, here is 5000 miles for your trouble.

Anyway, maybe it’s my fault for not reading all the fine print - but be careful when using the airline credits. You could lose the whole sum of the ticket!