Delta Canceled Flight Compensation: Navigating the Unexpected

Our Delta Canceled Flight Compensation Situation

Summer travel is lots of fun! Not only is it extremely busy, but storms this summer have also made it difficult to travel. Two weeks in a row, I ended up having a delayed/canceled flight, which led to me heading out to a hotel in the wee hours of the morning. So what happens when your flight is canceled? What should you do? I am going to go over my recent cancellations and explain what happened and why.

Delta flight to Atlanta from Nashville

Our family was in the Delta Lounge in Nashville, waiting for our quick flight to Atlanta before heading to London for our Norwegian Fjords cruise on the Sky Princess. It was gorgeous outside, so a weather delay had not even crossed my mind. Then our phones started getting notifications, and our flight was getting pushed back more and more. We were flying with my parents, and I had not linked our reservations that were booked on separate tickets. So I had 3 phones up trying to rebook all of us on the same earlier flight. I would rebook us, then our flights would be moved again. It became evident we were not going to be in Atlanta in time for our flight to London. Time was of the essence; we needed to get to London before our cruise from Southampton two days later. I ran out of options on the app. The phone number was jammed, so we ran out of the lounge and the long line of people trying to rebook and headed to the first Delta desk we saw. After waiting our turn, the agent saw if she could get us on the flight to Boston that was leaving, then we had a chance to get to Boston in time to take a delayed Virgin Atlantic flight to London.

Our desk agents worked so hard to get us on this flight. I will mention that they were dealing with a lot. Even though the weather was gorgeous in Nashville, there had been numerous ground stops in Atlanta due to the weather. The weather is beyond the control of the airlines, so if you get stranded overnight, it is not a covered event for them to assist you with accommodations. I cannot tell you how many frustrated and rude people they dealt with this night because of this. Side note: This is when using a premium credit card like the Chase Sapphire Reserve or Preferred comes in handy. Weather is a covered event for the travel insurance provided by your credit card. You can read about my weather claims here and here.

Flight to Boston

The amazing agents in Nashville successfully got us on the flight to Boston. We were told we were on our Virgin Atlantic flight to London was departing basically as we were arriving. When we got to Boston at 1 am, we took off running. We had my parents in their mid-70s. I have never seen my mom run, so we threw her in a wheelchair and my 17-year-old took off with her across the airport. They are calling our names, and we are hustling. However, I realized they were only calling two of our names. We kept running, but I thought this might be an issue. It was! Even though Delta could see all four of us on the flight, Virgin had only approval for 2 of the 4 of us. We had booked this as an award ticket through Air France. They tried calling Air France to get this rectified, but at 1 am no one answered. They unloaded our luggage and told us that since we had booked the ticket through Delta ……they would have to help us at this point. I am not going to lie, I teared up we were tired, at this point I thought our trip is over. There is no way we could get to London in time for the cruise. Some of the Virgin Atlantic gate agents teared up with us. I told them I understood, I wasn’t mad, just sad. I appreciated them trying.

Delta Agent saves our Trip

It’s 1 am and they are boarding one last Delta flight. We stand back and wait for them to finish boarding the flight, then our hero appears! We told him we weren’t on the current flight and we are stranded. He told us I will help you. We explained the situation, and he could see all of us on the Virgin Atlantic Flight that left. We explained they wouldn’t let us on. He starts typing frantically away, and after a few minutes, we are rebooked on a flight the next evening to London that arrives at 6:30 in the morning. Woohoo! This would get us to the UK in time to make our cruise. I asked if he knew of any place to stay near the hotel. I explained that we left our home airport to fly up here. The next thing I know, he is putting us up in a hotel with Uber vouchers and meal vouchers. I am assuming this is because they rerouted us to Boston. This was no longer a weather delay situation. Something happened on Delta’s end that we could not board the flight we flew up there to travel on. I’ll add after a bonus day in Boston; we arrived in London in time to make our cruise.

Flight Claim

Once we returned to the United States, I got to work. Delta took care of our room and a meal while in Boston. However, we did have some extra expenses that the airlines do not compensate for. We missed our hotel stay in London, and it was non-refundable. Even though I booked it with points, once we did not arrive, they refunded my points and charged me a fee for missing the stay. We also had a few extra meals in Boston thanks to the delay. I am filing a claim with my Chase Sapphire Reserve card to see if I can get reimbursed for those minor expenses. To get this process started I needed a letter from Delta explaining the delay. YOu can request this here. Even though I had used points to pay for my ticket to London, I had used my Chase Sapphire Reserve card to pay the taxes and fees of the ticket. This is all it takes for them to cover the trip. After I started the claim process, I got the following letter telling me what I needed to submit to get the claim paid.

Conclusion

I am very thankful for all the Delta Agents we encountered that night. I feel like they went above and beyond getting us to London for our cruise. Not only did I thank them. I took all their names and sent them a compliment email to Delta.

I hope you never experience a Delta canceled flight compensation issue, but if you do, I hope you remember to stay positive, and maybe some of what I experienced will help you navigate the process.

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