Airline "Alliances": How Delta Does a Craptacular Job With Theirs

We're caught in the hell that is airline "alliances."  The airlines present these codeshare and marketing agreements as ways to seamlessly travel across the globe, on different airlines, without any problems.  Wrong.  When we booked our flights to South Africa back in December, we chose to book on Delta's website, on a KLM plane, with a Delta number.  We did this because we got the same fare as KLM was offering, but KLM's wouldn't allow us to earn Delta miles.  (First not-seamless issue.)

 

We bought our tickets, chose our flights, and thought we were all set.  Wrong again:  we'd requested seats on the seat map that Delta had on its site that were premium seats that cost hundreds of Euro more.  Of course, the site didn't tell us this or give us any hint.  What it did do was put us into seat-selection purgatory.  When we discovered our error (about a month before departure), Delta could do nothing about our seats because we were flying KLM; KLM could do nothing about our seats because we had bought the tickets through Delta.  Seamless, right?  No.

 

KLM opens its online check-in winder thirty hours ahead of departure, so I went online to check in today.  Of course, we can't.  KLM's site won't let us, neither will Delta's.  Calling KLM gets us connected to Stateside Delta; Stateside Delta tells us to call KLM web support.    It's particularly frustrating because both of our flights are full and the idea of a middle seat for twenty hours of flying is discouraging, to say the least.

 

I've had similar issues with codeshares over the years, so it's not unique to Delta or Sky Team, but it is infuriating nonetheless.  What I think is that, if airlines are in these codeshare agreements, such that I have a Delta flight number, it should be a seamless experience.  Hell, even if it weren't seamless they could be more transparent about what's going on behind the scenes.  (Try this:  "If you choose these seats they will cost $XXX extra.  Once you choose them you cannot change them until you check in at the airport.")  Honestly, no industry, except maybe the mobile telephone industry, is so adept at alienating it's customer base.

 

All that said, twenty hours in between two strangers wouldn't be the end of the world, not even by a long stretch.  But, it's just frustrating when a customer does everything the correct way, unaware that the system is designed for failure.  Silly and pointless.

 

Okay, on to packing for the trip!