Are You Getting the Best Value for Your Dollar?

Over the weekend, I received an email from Delta regarding my flight itinerary for my family’s annual pilgrimage to New York to visit my husband’s parents. This is probably a common theme for many of you travelers, since airlines have been canceling flights like crazy, thanks to rising oil prices and other economic realities.

The trip going out wasn’t so bad: We added an hour layover to get in later. But coming back? Instead of leaving at around 11 a.m., Delta had us leaving at 6 a.m. Then, the new itinerary listed us with an eight-hour layover. This was extremely distressing for two reasons:

1. We have a five-year-old. What am I supposed to do with cranky five year old for eight hours in an airport?
2. We paid for more convenient tickets. When you leave mid-morning and get shorter layovers, you pay more for your airline ticket. In our case, it cost about $125 more per ticket for the convenience of a shorter hour layover and leaving at a time that doesn’t require my five year old to get up at four in the morning.

This new itinerary was not an option. So I called Delta. And got the itinerary changed.

I politely explained my situation. And I asked for exactly what I wanted. In this case, a later flight (I got a 12:30 pm flight) and a shorter layover (back to three hours from eight). If this had not been possible, I was prepared to ask for a refund on the cost of one of my airline tickets. Luckily, I suspect that Delta has a policy of allowing these types of changes, in these circumstances, free of charge. But you won’t know if you don’t ask.

When you pay for a service, you expect to get the best value for your dollar. And you should get it. Over at Get Rich Slowly, you can see five keys to getting what you want out of customer service.

image credit: Keith Kristoffer Bacongco