Heads up if you are flying Delta Airlines to FLL for Cruises in next couple months.

[tallyho8]

I had Delta change my flight today also. I was booked to go to Seattle for an Alaskan cruise on September 18 on Alaska Airlines non-stop roundtrip. Alaska changed times too late to make the cruise and too early to come home so I booked with Delta. Today Delta changed my flight too early to board on the way home so I had to change it through Expedia. After an hour I got my flight changed to a one stop but have to contact Delta to get my seats reserved.

 

I called Delta and was told to hold on that they will get to me in 2 hours. My battery would be dead by then. I will try calling about 3 in the morning and see if the wait time is shorter.

 

Southwest changed my flight to Orlando to catch my flight to St Maarten for the June 5 cruise and I had to change it to Jet Blue at the last minute. $$$

[cangelmd]

I still get the change emails from Delta, but we book direct. Even pre-Covid, Delta would change our flights 75% of the time, but almost always only by a few minutes. One time about 3 years ago they a flight out of FLL by 2 hours. They changed it for us, even though we didn’t notice for about a month.

They do the adjustment about6-8weeks out?

[CyberTag]

2 hours ago, BEAV said:

 

Since you booked through Celebrity, does Delta have your contact info in order to notify you of changes?

Our Delta flight changed, and we received an email from Delta today regarding the change.  

[CarrieAP]

Well this proved to be good timing on my end for once. Placed a hold on Edge for 8/28 yesterday, finalizing booking today. When I went to book our flights the options seemed quite different. Makes sense now. Thanks for the heads up. We have flights to Athens on American in Oct and those have changed significantly. Arriving 3 days pre-cruise and one day after which thankfully minimizes timing anxieties. 

[ipeeinthepool]

5 hours ago, cangelmd said:

I still get the change emails from Delta, but we book direct. Even pre-Covid, Delta would change our flights 75% of the time, but almost always only by a few minutes. One time about 3 years ago they a flight out of FLL by 2 hours. They changed it for us, even though we didn’t notice for about a month.

They do the adjustment about6-8weeks out?

 

I'm always skeptical about the changes that Delta makes about 6 - 8 weeks before departure, particularly when they involve large time changes but this issue may be more of an issue for people that fly out of Delta's hub cities.  We usually book several months ahead of time and often book departures that are earlier in the day.  It's not uncommon for Delta to move us from an early flight to a later flight to allow more seats for passengers with connecting flights that may have fewer connecting flight options.  This is more of an issue with returning flights.  We are usually able to get back on our original flight if we act fast enough but it is an annoyance.  

[terrydtx]

8 hours ago, BEAV said:

 

Since you booked through Celebrity, does Delta have your contact info in order to notify you of changes?

The flights are linked to my Delta FF number which has all of my contact information. 

[hcat]

We only use DELTA for international flights from/ to JFK ( NY)

They change flts very often ..both ways. Last time out of Rome we had to stay an extra day  at a hotel b/c of the change.

 

SW Air to/ from Islip (ISP)  to Fla ..Ft Myers (RSW) changes much more  than in the past. We have to change planes in Baltimore (BWI) ..horrible airport. Many of the changes involve very long layovers there so we have to try and switch flts.  Have to check daily for changes.  They do send notices but best to be on top of it.

 

Lately the SW Air  evening return flt from RSW   has either been cancelled at Baltimore leg or comes in very late...We are trying Frontier in August. Hoping the non stop works out..First time trying it .

 

Just another part of travel that used to be  much easier . 

[terrydtx]

24 minutes ago, hcat said:

Lately the SW Air  evening return flt from RSW   has either been cancelled at Baltimore leg or comes in very late...We are trying Frontier in August. Hoping the non stop works out..First time trying it .

I hope you have better luck with Frontier, but they were horrible here in San Antonio pre Covid. SW and Frontier we ONLY use when no one else can get us to a destination, which is not very often. We prefer Delta and United both domestic and international. American has better connections for us (DFW) but their service is just terrible and we try to avoid them if possible. Last month we flew first class from DFW to Portland, Oregon on American a  3 1/2 hour flight and all we got for a meal was a stale sandwich with no chips and only one round of drinks. Worse yet, the Airbus 321 was an old plane with no entertainment screens and we had to use a tablet or smartphone to watch a movie but it had no place to plug in the tablet to charge it and this was the first class cabin. We had booked American for the flights to FLL next month for our cruise and we canceled immediately after our AA Oregon experience and booked the Delta flights.

[cluso]

It used to be the standard that flight changes were made quarterly (in the "old" days).  Now it is a different game.  So many things can disrupt schedules.  Airport/runway construction/maintenance. Aircraft fleet recalls.  Weather related incidents that cause damage at airports.  A big issue now is lack of employees, especially flight crews.  Changes are usually done by computers, sometimes they don't make sense or work.  To play it safe, take some personal responsibility and monitor your travel plans. And, wear your mask and be nice. 😷  I feel sorry for flight crews having to put up with unruly passengers.

[Sunshine424]

Not sure that this is really a new thing.  We fly Delta 95% of the time.  I have not taken a flight in years that Delta has not changed in some way.  Usually they are 15 minutes to an hour changes.  But every so often they are significant, so I can understand the frustration.  Our trip to Orlando back in late June they changed our return flight from 7:59 pm to 1 pm.  We had Disney tickets for our last day so we called and had to change it.  I have learned over the years to just check on it about every 2-4 weeks.  I find if I wait for the email to get to me it can be harder to make the change.  For us, time has only been one issue.  Often when they make a 15 minute or hour change, they sometimes change the plane and therefore the seating.  Since  we are flying with kids I prefer to be on top of that.  One time when my kids were very young they moved us to separate rows all over the plane and it was a pain to fix.  Right now I am watching two separate trips, both have had minor changes. 

[zitsky]

2 hours ago, cluso said:

It used to be the standard that flight changes were made quarterly (in the "old" days).  Now it is a different game.  So many things can disrupt schedules.  Airport/runway construction/maintenance. Aircraft fleet recalls.  Weather related incidents that cause damage at airports.  A big issue now is lack of employees, especially flight crews.  Changes are usually done by computers, sometimes they don't make sense or work.  To play it safe, take some personal responsibility and monitor your travel plans. And, wear your mask and be nice. 😷  I feel sorry for flight crews having to put up with unruly passengers.

 

I'll get unruly if I don't get my one drink.  🙂

[ipeeinthepool]

2 minutes ago, zitsky said:

 

I'll get unruly if I don't get my one drink.  🙂

 

Careful, we don't want you to end up on the no-fly list.  😉

[zitsky]

6 minutes ago, ipeeinthepool said:

 

Careful, we don't want you to end up on the no-fly list.  😉

 

They don't even let me bring my own liquor!

[terrydtx]

This morning I got another email from celebrity Air (nothing from Delta) and the flights we were changed to yesterday have changed today. The connecting flight from ATL to SAT that got us home at 8:30 has now been canceled and the flight 2 hours later gets us home at 10:30. We now have a 4 hour layover in Atlanta.  We are basically out of options for getting home now, that you Delta!!

[NMTraveller]

1 hour ago, zitsky said:

 

I'll get unruly if I don't get my one drink.  🙂

Stop by the Centurion lounge before the flight. 🙂

[zitsky]

1 minute ago, NMTraveller said:

Stop by the Centurion lounge before the flight. 🙂

 

I don't have a Centurion card.  I do have United passes though.

[ExArkie]

18 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

Useful info, thanks. Any idea when United makes schedule adjustments?  Thanks. 

Not for their recent history. The United schedule out of Charlotte is pretty thin, so I haven't flown them much in the past several years. Back in the days when I was flying out of O'Hare a lot, their schedule changes were mostly on Saturday or Sunday. They also did them on other days more often than did Delta, but definitely less frequently than on the weekend. I don't have enough data from recent years to make a definitive statement as to whether that is still true.

 

[ExArkie]

17 hours ago, GeorgiaPeach51 said:

I will also add that if your flight is changed, especially if the type of aircraft changes, you need to check your seating assignments.  This happened pre-Covid, but we booked very early for seats on a long flight to Buenos Aires, just so we could have two seats on the side, rather than in the middle of a row of five.

 

When Delta changed the flight time they also changed the type of plane and that changed us to ...guess where....seats in that dreaded middle.  We squawked about it and after going around and around finally got back to what we had originally for seat location but with different row and seat assignments.

 

so just beware and check your seat assignments....they appeared to be exactly the same seats, same row.  Only in checking the aircraft layout did we discover the swiitcheroo.

 

if it was for a shorter flight, maybe even cross country, we would probably just go with it, but absolutely not on a long haul.

Excellent point. I would add to that idea that sometimes the type of plane can change and still have the same flight schedule and flight number. This happened to me recently, where there was no indication of any changes on the schedule, but the plane changed from a 757 to an A321. We still had the same seats assigned on the new configuration, but we were no longer in the exit row. The change in aircraft sacrificed our leg room, which is important on the ATL-LAX flight. Had to go back and re-select seats to get ones we wanted, which I was able to do on the Delta Web site.

 

Fortunately, because I am paranoid about flight schedule changes, I found out about this soon after it occurred and got to the exit row seats before they were taken.

 

 

 

 

[terrydtx]

42 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

Stop by the Centurion lounge before the flight. 🙂

I have a Priority Pass through my Hilton Honors AMEX card and we can use their lounge in the ATL international terminal for free.

[NMTraveller]

1 minute ago, terrydtx said:

I have a Priority Pass through my Hilton Honors AMEX card and we can use their lounge in the ATL international terminal for free.

We did Priority Pass a couple of weeks ago in the Buffalo airport.  It is definitely a better experience than waiting in the terminal.

 

In a couple of weeks we have a long layover in ATL.  Good to know that they have Priority Pass there.  

[terrydtx]

3 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

We did Priority Pass a couple of weeks ago in the Buffalo airport.  It is definitely a better experience than waiting in the terminal.

 

In a couple of weeks we have a long layover in ATL.  Good to know that they have Priority Pass there.  

That is good to know we will be in Buffalo the end of September to see friends and the Falls, if Canada opens up and we can get back into the US without testing.  We fly through ATL again both ways and have another long ATL layover coming home. BTW those Delta flights have changed several times too.

[terrydtx]

9 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

In a couple of weeks we have a long layover in ATL.  Good to know that they have Priority Pass there.  

It is Club Atlanta in the F concourse and it is open from 6:30am to 10:00pm daily

[Denny01]

11 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

It is Club Atlanta in the F concourse and it is open from 6:30am to 10:00pm daily

I went ahead and got the Amex Plat card so we could use the Delta Clubs. Hopefully will now use it much more! 

 

Den

[NMTraveller]

13 minutes ago, Denny01 said:

I went ahead and got the Amex Plat card so we could use the Delta Clubs. Hopefully will now use it much more! 

 

Den

Delta Clubs, Centurion Lounges, and Priority Pass with the Amex Plat.  With the number of trips we have worthwhile IMHO.

[Denny01]

3 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

Delta Clubs, Centurion Lounges, and Priority Pass with the Amex Plat.  With the number of trips we have worthwhile IMHO.

Yup. I try not to ‘help’ others spend money, but this is very handy…..for us! We always shoot when possible for a longer time when flying through ATL and so on, especially on Euro flights.

 

As we ‘mature’, I need the quiet and more relaxing locations. The days of flying to Euro, throwing a loaf of French bread and cheese and wine into my backpack, jumping on a train and heading off is gone ….. especially the ‘jumping on’ anything part! That’s why we cruise much more. Not just for us ‘mature’ types, but those who enjoy the relax part of vacationing. 

 

Den