Weird Delta Bug–Fake Cancelled Flight and Wrong-Way Route

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I was hanging out at a hotel this weekend that a lot of my friends were staying at.  Late into my evening, a friend who had already gone upstairs to head to bed received an email from Delta informing him his flight was cancelled and offered him three alternate routes.

He was about to sleep and the flight options were first thing in the  morning, so he ran his laptop down to see if I was still at the bar.

I started pulling up flight options for him immediately.  My first advice was to call them and ask for a different flight available.  It was strange to me that they would replace his late evening flight with a first-thing flight.  Especially when they were letting him know close to midnight.  He could have been asleep already.

Then I noticed two really strange things.

1. His “cancelled” flight was not cancelled.

That flight was still operating.  I kept looking at his alert and referencing the flight number.  But it was still very much operating.

2. His flight options were in the wrong direction

Delta was rescheduling him on flights that went from his DESTINATION to where he was already!

 

I tried to sound as calm as possible so that he wouldn’t worry.  But I told him, you need to call Delta now.  Not in five minutes, not later tonight. This second.

While he was on the phone, I kept looking at everything in case I had a weird brain fart and imagined the whole situation.  But nope.  The flight decided his flight was cancelled and rebooked him on the wrong direction.

When he got off the phone, he told me the agent said their system hit a snag, thought his flight was cancelled when it wasn’t, and then put him on the wrong flights.  They put him back on his original flight, but without a seat assignment at this point.

I still don’t know what happened.  I checked to see if there were flight cancellations in the reverse direction, but they weren’t.

But this is a reminder to always check your reservations.  If your flight is cancelled, check whether you are rebooked on the right day, or even rebooked on the right route.

Keri and I were rebooked once and told the flight was for the next morning.  When we looked at the tickets, it was for two days later.

I once had a flight moved up by 45 minutes with no notice to me in the past too.

Moral of the story is, you can’t be too obsessed with checking your tickets!