Delta Fares

Need the return flight of round trip ticket only?

A few months ago, I purchased three Delta round trip tickets at $300 a piece. One for myself and 2 for my children. Since then, their Grandma wanted to fly them out to her house for a bit, then fly them on to our final destination arriving on the originally scheduled date. I called Delta to see how much it would be to change the departing airport for my children's tickets. They quoted me $500 a piece!! I purchased Air Tran tickets at $100 a piece and thought I would only use the return portion of the round trip tickets. I later found out I needed to arrive at our destination a couple days early. I called Delta to see about changing MY flight to a different day-- $400! I ended up being able to purchase a flight using miles with another airline. Then I received a paper receipt from Delta about my three tickets and I notice it says something like failure to fly any leg will cancel the rest of the reservation! I had been counting on using the return flights! I called Delta again, and they were as rude as could be and told me it would be $200 a piece to change them to one way tickets!! (personally, I do not understand this practice-- I have already paid for the seats, and they are going to charge ME for the honor of reselling them and making more money?). What recourse do I have here? I will actually be at the destination airport on the day the original Delta tickets would have put us there. Can I check-in online before the flight then visit the Delta counter at the destination airport and tell them there was some kind of mistake, that I actually was on that flight and thereby save my return flights? I am desperate not to lose any more money on this Delta fiasco (btw, I will never fly them again due to their horrendous customer service). Thanks to anyone with any insight into how to get around this limitation.

Public Comments

1. Call Clark Howard the consumer advocate. You likely will not get to talk to him but he has a big staff of volunteers who will advise you. (877) 87-CLARK
2. "What recourse do I have here?" Absolutely none. Everything Delta told you is correct -- as soon as you fail to fly any portion of a ticket, all remaining segments on the itinerary are automatically cancelled. And you simply can't check in and fail to show up -- they'll know you weren't on the plane as soon as your boarding passes aren't scanned, and still cancel the reservation. (I'd note that the fare rules for these tickets most likely will clearly state that the reservation is cancelled as soon as you fail to show up for any leg.) What you are proposing actually has a name -- "throwaway ticketing" -- which is the practice of buying a round-trip ticket, but only using part of it. It's commonly done with the first half of the ticket, but it's never done with the second half, for the reasons already mentioned. Regardless, it's against the rules on Delta and most airlines, with the penalty as low as cancellation of the ticket and as high as paying the difference between the one-way and the round-trip ticket. In summary, the only recourse you have at this point is to either fly the Delta tickets as you purchased, pay to make the changes, or call Delta to cancel the tickets and buy new one-way tickets. (If you call and cancel the tickets before the departure date, you will retain some value that can be used at a later date.) Complaining more isn't going to help in this instance, especially in a situation where the customer is trying to get around published rules that are in place especially to prevent people from doing what you're trying to do.