TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Delta to SXM Not in Sept/Oct

It was mentioned earlier in another thread about Delta possibly not offering service to SXM in Sept. and Oct. I spent a lot of time trying to find some actual confirmation of this and finally found some this morning. If you go to Delta Flight Maps and enter your city and SXM, it does appear they are suspending all service to SXM in September and October and returning with very limited service through late November.

Good luck to anyone booked on Delta for these months.

DELTA FLIGHT MAPS

Go to "FLIGHTS" enter your city and SXM to see the schedule.

This is JUST Delta at this point, if you are on AA, JB, United or any other airline, you may be ok but they do all usually follow each other with many things. Check your schedules often.

Thank you for the heads up.

Thanks for the heads up, checked with Delta got my points refunded and have now booked with AA for Oct. 31st. Really hope that AA did not go ahead and take my reservation at at time that they knew they would not be going to SXM. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Who knows what will happen, but I expect AA to reduce their schedule from every day, but figure they will still fly from Miami a few days a week.

Delta cancelled our flights for November. Now to see if they will refund our tickets. UGH!

If they cancelled the flight there should be no problem. Same with us for Amsterdam in July...they cancelled and we got the cash back

They are REQUIRED to refund your tickets, yes.

HOWEVER--do you still want to go??? Since were talking November here, you COULD just wait to see how things shake out, IF you still want to go.

Delta in particular has been doing a lot of changing around of their schedules--cancelling flights and then adding back flights on different days, a few days later. I assume this is due to low passenger loads. UNLESS they file bankruptcy, which I have no indication that they will (or they won't), IF you still want to go, there is not an advantage to you to go ahead and contact them now to get your money back. Of course, if they file bankruptcy, you could be scr*wed, but hopefully that won't happen.

IF they add back more flights on different days (or if there are flights available around your time right now that will work), call them and ask to be switched to a different day. Since they cancelled your flight, they are required to give you your money back, which they do not want to do. It is to THEIR advantage to not give you your money back, but to fly you down on a different day, even if their listed price for that day is more than what you paid. So, first, if there are flights available now around your date that will work for you, call and ask to be switched to that date. They will probably do that for you, free of charge. If you cancel now and get your money back and a few days from now, they add back dates that will work for you, then they will NOT be able to reinstate your booking for the price you paid (if it was less). You can book at the new, higher price, for sure, but they won't honor the price you originally had.

So, IF you still want to go, there is little advantage to you to go ahead and get your money back now. You are ENTITLED to your money back, pursuant to FAA rules. If you wait a bit, you may be able to switch to a different date that will work for you. Or, if by some miracle, the price goes down from what you booked, then go ahead and cancel and get your money back and re-book.

Absolutely we want to go. I wondered how long we have to ask for a refund but yes, if at all possible, we would love to go. The other sticking point is, will the french boarder be open by then? Our hotel, L'Esplanade is on the French side. However, with this excellent advice from Carol, we will wait for a while to see if things will change for the better. Bob says "Sounds like a plan." :-) Thanks!

I'm so over 2020!

Dee

I would say there is little advantage in NOT getting your money back now. You can always book for a later date but your cash will be in your bank account. Cash is always better than credits

My opinion....

France has declared both St Martin and St Barth to be "active circulation zones". One piece of the fallout from that is that the border control has been extended to September 15.

boucharda--Here's the deal--If the price goes UP from what you paid, they will most likely allow you to switch to another date for free, since you have a reservation that THEY cancelled. If the price goes DOWN, cancel and re-book at the new price. I know someone who specifically got screwed because they cancelled, new dates announced a couple of days later, and they called back to try to re-book at the original rate, and no deal, could only book at the new, much higher rate.

As I said, it depends if you really still want to go or not.

DDnBob--I totally understand your issue with regard to the border being open. Unless you need the money, I personally would wait a while and see what happens. You can always get your money back later..

I’m inclined to agree with you, Carol.

There have been several occasions when this particular scenario has happened to us and each time the airline, in our case AA, has been agreeable to giving us almost any other flight we wanted that was the same final destination and day. And in one case we were booked AA 1st class, JFK to SXM through MIA and they allowed us to change our outbound to LaGuardia since it was a better departure time for us even though there were other flights available from JFK.

If you really fear the airline might go bust I can see taking the money but I’m skeptical that Delta will go that route and personally speaking I’d let it ride for at least a couple of weeks.

The odds of one or all US airlines going bankrupt by 2021 are huge. The bet literally relates to fare paid. Cheap airfare, let it ride. High airfare at booking, get your cash.

Unless uncle sam extends bailout, massive numbers of pilots, flight attendents, etc wil be out of a job.

Not going happen.

I think (and it might not be right) that we will wait until the end of September to see where things stand. We're going to watch Delta closely and if there is a chance that they may go bankrupt, we'll immediately ask for a refund. We got such a great price that I would hate to get a refund now only to have things open back up in St. Martin and have to pay a higher price.

Thank you all for your advice. You all have definitely gave us something to think about.

Dee and Bob

The airlines are required to refund your original cash payment if THEY cancel your flight. With Delta (revised 8/20) if you want to rebook at a later they will refund the difference if the fare is lower and charge you the additional cost if the fare is higher. The no additional fare cost only applies if you will travel somewhere before 9/30

If YOU decide to cancel the flight the same will apply but with e-credits and no change fee

I guess it will work out the same if you just wait and decide when to go. I agree that the only reason to get cash back is if you will not be going to SXM or if you think the airline will go belly up

I know, I received a FULL refund, including $130/ticket that was an e-voucher from when the price dropped. I spoke with Delta on Sat. evening and the credit was posted as soon as Tuesday. I figured cash in hand was the way to go since Delta cancelled and at that time was not showing any flights around our dates. By mid-week last week they reinstated some flights that could have possibly allowed for a trip that was 1 day shorter than originally planned. The price has since fluctuated from $100 to $200/ticket higher than our original fare. I am not willing to pay that much more and lose 1 day of vacation. If the price drops back to what we originally paid, I may reconsider but my wife wants to throw in the towel on a visit this fall at this point.

Had I not cancelled, I believe (according to what a senior agent told me), I could have changed flights and kept the original fare. Based on what you are saying, perhpas the agent was mistaken. My loss, I guess but I also had a 27 year tenured Delta supervisor tell me our original fights were a go and not to worry just 2 days prior to Delta blowing things up.

Want to bet your scuba gear? Limit it to American, Delta, Southwest, United through midnight 31 Dec 2021.

First airline = regulator, 2nd = BC, 3rd = mask/snorkel, 4th = fins. If all 4 go, you’ll have wetsuit, boots & a knife.

There are zero, repeat zero profits predicted in the worldwide airline industry well into 2021.

Delta was burning 100 million cash a day right after pandemic and they now burn 27 million a day. Their stated goal is to be breaking even at zero cash burn on New year’s eve.

https://crankyflier.com/2020/07/30/figuring-out-how-much-cash-the-airlines-are-really-burning/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_on_airlines

If none of them go under by deadline Ill pay for a dive in SXM in 2022.

boucharda--nobody knows what will actually happen with ANYTHING these days, but I was thinking of JD's situation when I made my post. OTHER THAN the risk of bankruptcy, which certainly is a risk these days, there is no reason not to wait a while longer in DDnBob's situation. If they announce more flights and they don't let them switch for free, then they can always decide whether to pay more money or just cancel. In their case, hoping for the French side to open back up, all the more reason to do nothing for a bit.

Actually these two SXM trips were going to be my last year of Diving so that bet is meaningless to me. Probably be listing all my gear on ebay or craigslist.