A Traveler's Warning: Delta

Dear Frequent Travelers,
If you book on Delta a word of warning. One week before I was scheduled to depart Beijing, in a country where internet access is dubious, I received an email informing me that my Delta flight from Beijing to Seattle had been rescheduled three hours earlier. From just before noon, to just before nine am. Luckily, I got the email. And though it was an irritation to lose three hours of sleep on a day that was already going to be 40 hours long (due to the joy of time zones), I didn't pitch a fit.

But then, when I got to the airport, I discovered that my layover in Seattle (which had previously been 11 hours, allowing me to grab lunch with a friend in town) was now 14 hours... and because my layover was over 12 hours the airline refused to check my bag all the way through - forcing me to pay a baggage fee in Seattle and a storage fee to store my bag until regulations allowed it to be checked. $27.50 is not a lot of money, but it was money I was charged due to the inconvenience caused by their airline - but they refused to reimburse me that small amount. I flew over 11,000 miles on their airline and they refused to help me with a small baggage issue their rescheduling had caused. (The supervisor I was told to take it up with actually pretended not to hear me and simply walked away.)

This is not the only time in recent months that myself or someone I know has had their Delta flight rescheduled to an earlier time on little or no notice and I have yet to hear of the airline compensating for difficulties caused by their changes. So if you are booking, and you have flight options, that is something to consider as you are making your plans. The flight itself was very comfortable... except for the fact that we weren't immediately let off the plane when we arrived in Seattle because we were told Customs wasn't open yet. This on a flight that had been moved earlier... to a time when Customs wasn't even open. Charming.