Searching for four business class seats over a set of dates several China Eastern options come up on the Delta website. Here’s a simple spreadsheet showing what appeared to be available.
When you go to book though only the Vancouver flights were actually available. On the others the Delta website says,
Uh-oh! We’re sorry, but the award redemption level for the flights you selected is no longer available. Please search again to view and select alternate flights.
Phantom award availability on an airline website is hardly new or even notable. For instance Air France for years would show phantom Kenya Airways space. American Airlines shows phantom Finnair space all the time. British Airways used to show phantom space for LAN.
In that case usually what you do is call the airline. Phone agents would see real availability. That’s annoying, having to pick up the phone, but you could rely on it.
China Eastern Boeing 737
What’s different here is that Delta phone agents seem to be seeing the same phantom space. Everything looks good when you call and they build the itinerary but then it errors out, even over the phone.
This is doubly annoying because you might find the award space online, verify with a phone agent that it’s real, and then transfer points to Delta in reliance on the assurance that the space is available only to have the itinerary error out. Then your points are stuck in a SkyMiles account and you don’t have an itinerary (or the option to use your Amex points through another frequent flyer program).
Delta owns a stake in China Eastern, hopefully they can work together to solve this.
AA does too with Qantas and BA and they do nothing to fix the problem
Bad enough space is near no existent and now fake availability
Worse than fake news
So the ExpertFlyer wouldn’t help in this case?
I believe both China Eastern and China Southern always matched whatever showed on the ExpertFlyer web site and bookable with Delta agent by phone.
Yes I have seen all of this. Nothing new.
#DeltaWebsiteIsScrewed
That’s an understatement.
Incorrect. EF is just as bad as DL website.
AA is doing this with FinnAir as well. Major problem, should be considered a major slap in the face.
that’s the punishment for peso lovers! If you trust delta, shame on you! No sympathy here. LOL
MU has been my most troublesome DL partner to ticket for several years, website and phone. CZ is next. If Flying Blue shows availability there is some hope, though many times DL falls flat on what Flying Blue can book. And that is even with no more formal blackout dates for any DL partner except KE. There are some obsture routing rules and errors limiting what should be possible from what is possible.
At what point of the booking process do you see the error message? Trying to confirm the CZ flights I found on Delta.com aren’t phantom availability since I can’t find them on Flying Blue.
At what point is there a class action suit against Delta and its fraudulent partners?
Still happening 2 years later…China Eastern flight as well. Been showing 4 seats available for weeks, but “sold out” upon attempting to pay. Agent sees the same thing. A couple days later the space disappears, then it comes back. WTF.
Feb 2023 and I’m getting the same error…………..