In the last two weekends, two major reservations systems updates have happened with major airlines.
JetBlue changed over from their own reservations system to participating in Sabre, a major GDS system, and joined the Airline Report Corporation (ARC), which means travel agents can now issue their e-tickets.
Delta has finally eliminated the Northwest label from their flights after the completed merger. (The KLM name remains in Europe.) Which means any flights booked as Northwest have now been changed over to Delta.
At this point, it appears, both changes seem to have gone relatively smoothly. But even if that means 99 percent of reservations are fine, this doesn’t help if you are one of the other 1 percent.
So in the interest of being better safe than sorry, call or go online to double-check your reservation, or ask your travel agent to send you a copy. For good measure, double-check that any seat assignments are still in order.
In addition, if traveling on an e ticket, especially one with another carrier involved, make sure the e-ticket still matches the reservation, since any deviation will at the very least slow you down at check-in.
Finally, for frequent fliers, make sure the mileage number is still attached to the record. This sounds trivial, until you discover six months from now that your reservations didn’t get credited and you have to send in proof of travel.
This last is especially important for anyone who booked with a travel agency where the agent has has stored your mileage numbers in a profile. Because a Northwest number will no longer be active, and the Delta number, whether new or pre-existing, may not have automatically transferred.
At worst, double-checking your reservation will waste a few minutes if everything is in order. At best, it will save you a potential nightmare at the airport.
photo by sainz/flickr.com/creative commons.
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A couple of my clients were booked on Northwest for flights from Florida to Hawaii. On the return they were supposed to go from HNL to SEA to ATL to RSW. When the flights were changed to Delta, their HNL to SEA leg was scheduled to leave a couple of hours after their SEA to ATL leg. Obviously that doesn’t work!
A couple of calls later, I was able to get them rebooked on HNL – ATL – RSW, which is a better flight anyway. However, you do need to check those changes.
which is the reason it’s always a good idea to use a reputable, experienced travel agent for complicated itineraries … in just about anything other than a routine round trip flight/hotel/car rental (and sometimes even then) using a travel agent is well worth the fees. It’s kind of like the legal profession says ..a traveler with a complicated itinerary who makes his own arrangements has a fool for a client.
Boy, am I glad you said something!
I just checked on my reservations, and they have completely vanished! Holy smokes, as my father used to say. Hopefully, this will be easily resolved (I’ll keep you posted)–I’ve just sent a copy of my confirmation to Delta’s SkyMiles support–and I’m waiting on an answer.
I’m fortunate. My trip isn’t until late September. Can you imagine, though, if I’d waited until a few days before to check on things? It could have been a real nightmare. I’m confident with eight months, I’ve got plenty of time to sort things out.