Delta erronously claimed no-show and canceled tickets

I wanted to share my recent experience with Delta Airlines so you know what you may get next time you book airfare with Delta.

My husband and I purchased a 3-leg airfare with Delta Airlines back in May from NY to Milan, Rome to Istanbul, and Istanbul back to NY. Our trip consisted of 2 weeks in Italy before we flew to Turkey to attend a wedding in Izmir on August 12.

We flew the first leg of our trip from NY to Milan without any mishaps on June 19. As a matter of fact, since my husband is a frequent flier with Delta, and has Gold medallion status, we ended up getting upgraded to first class. We were pretty happy about that at the time but now, in retrospect, we think this is probably what led to the error made by Delta that caused us a whole lot of trouble later on.

As I mentioned, the second leg of our trip was on July 12 from Rome to Istanbul with Delta partner Alitalia. We were scheduled to fly out of Rome in the morning and arrive in Istanbul mid afternoon, where we had a domestic flight booked that would land us in Izmir at 5 PM. We arrived at Rome Fiumicino airport over two hours before our scheduled flight and proceeded to check-in. When the agent we first approached could not pull up our itinerary, we did not suspect a problem at all. However, when the second agent we were directed to questioned us about whether we have cancelled or missed our flight from New York to Milan, and we had to show a boarding pass I had luckily not thrown away to prove that we took the flight, we started to get worried. When the agent got on the phone with Delta to figure out the problem, we found out that Delta has made a huge error, and for some inexplicable reason, put us on their system as no-shows for the NY-Milan flight, and cancelled the remainder of our tickets, which were then resold. The Alitalia agent tried to resolve the problem and got his supervisor involved to try to get us seats on the flight. We ended up waiting I believe over two hours while they went back and forth to ultimately find out the flight was now full, and we were not going to make it. I am truly not a dramatic person but I just broke down crying at hearing this information as the wedding we were supposed to attend was my best friend's, and the whole reason we were going to Turkey was to attend the wedding.

To make the long story somewhat shorter, we were told the next Alitalia flight we could take would get us to Istanbul past midnight. Given that our final destination was Izmir and that we had to be at a wedding there by 7 PM, this was out of the question for us. My husband went through all airlines flying to Turkey, and the only option that could get us to Turkey that afternoon was with Turkish Airlines. We ended up buying two tickets on the spot that cost us 916.72 Euros(converted to $1,281.62). Unfortunately, our ordeal did not end there. We landed in Istanbul at 4 PM, which was the scheduled departure time of our domestic flight. We, of course, missed that flight, and had to purchase yet another set of tickets to fly from Istanbul to Izmir. We ended up arriving in Izmir three hours later than we were supposed to. We had a pickup service arranged through our hotel that was going to pick us up at the airport, which we also missed since we arrived so much later than our scheduled time. We were then forced to take a cab to the hotel. In the end, we arrived two hours late to the wedding, too late for the ceremony...I was supposed to be the witness at the wedding, which is the highest honor in my culture. However, because we were two hours late, I was unable to carry out that role. I cannot put into words the extent of the shock, disappointment, sadness, anger, and stress I felt that day.

All in all, this whole ordeal cost us not only the stress and heartbreak we went through but also approximately $1,550. We certainly had expectations that we would be compensated fully and promptly for this. We contacted Delta to resolve this situation the day after our arrival in Izmir. It turned out that Delta conveniently has no customer service line that deals with refund requests for international travel, and we were directed to email or send a letter. We followed through with an email on July 20th, and received a response on July 30th that only added insult to injury.

The customer service representative responding to our complaint wrote some cookie-cutter lines thanking us for our email and apologizing for our experience, and added "We also want you to know that if a passenger does not use a confirmed seat, or if Delta flight coupons are not used in the order they were issued, the continuing and return reservations will be automatically canceled" Considering that our complaint was based entirely on the fact that our tickets were cancelled erroneously even though we used our confirmed seats from NY to Milan, and this representative either chose to ignore that fact to make the problem go away or did not understand the problem at all was very disconcerting for us. His offer of $100.00 in electronic Transportation Credits for each passenger as a "goodwill gesture," on the other hand, was a plain insult, especially when we have paid more than that per person in taxes and fees alone, and did not even get to use the portion of our tickets from Rome to Istanbul. What followed was a series of emails where we continuously stressed that we have used our confirmed seats, and our tickets were cancelled due to an error entirely on Delta's end, that a $100 credit per person was not an acceptable solution, and asked to be directed to a manager. We asked to be reimbursed for the amount of money we spent in additional tickets we had to purchase in cash or the equivalent of it in Sky Miles.

The representative we dealt with assured us that he reviewed our comments again to see if there was something he missed, and indicated that they understand the problem we experienced was due to ticket cancellation, and refused to pass our complaint to a higher-up. At no time did he acknowledge that our tickets were cancelled due to an error on Delta's end. When we wrote back expressing our disbelief in the lack of responsibility he conveyed on behalf of Delta, he responded one last time letting us know that he had reviewed our comments with his supervisor, and that there would be no further action they would take regarding our experience. I was and still am simply appalled at the handling of our situation and Delta's unaccountability. While I may understand that mistakes can be made, I do not understand or accept that they may go uncorrected. The most unnerving thing about our experience is Delta's failure to acknowledge their error and their lack of responsibility in terms of correcting it.

It is curious that even though there are Delta policies in place outlining actions in cases of involuntarily denied boarding on domestic flights (rebooking on the first available Delta flight or comparable accommodations on another airline or offering Delta Dollars transportation credits in lieu of cash, meal allowances and hotel accommodations), which is a comparable situation to our experience, we were only offered a $100 credit as a goodwill gesture. Does the airline feel no responsibility to its customers when operating outside of U.S. territory? What is even more curious is that international airfare costs a great deal more than domestic airfare, and one would think keeping those high-paying customers satisfied would be a priority but my experience tells me otherwise. What does this mean to all Delta customers flying internationally? What kind of assurance do I have that next time I book a flight with Delta, they will not once again make some error and leave me footing a hefty bill for their error?