Thread: Advice needed on using Delta buddypass to go to Europe this summer

Hi Henry,

I have tried this in the past with a friend on a buddy pass. I have a relative who works for Delta, so I fly S3B which is a little better than a buddy, S4 priority, but still kinda low on the list. We planned a trip to Copenhagen, DK in July for a week going through London Gatwick (LGW). From my personal expereince, I have never had a problem getting into, or out of LGW. On the other had, my friend on the buddy pass, was able to get to LGW, but would not have made the list for the return trip and ended up getting a one way ticket. If you are already in NY, JFK has a lot of flights to Europe, so I would just try to get on one of those if you aren't too far down on the NRSA list (whoever gave you the buddy pass can tell you this). The beginning of July is a tough time to travel, especially due to our July 4th weekend. I'm not sure about European holidays also, but there are a couple websites that tell all the official holidays of each country. My advise would be to try from JFK if the Travelline says the flights are "fair", otherwise try to get to LGW. When you are at LGW, you can find some really cheap flights from there to other European cities on Easyjet or Ryanair or others...probably cheaper than a train out of the UK. There are a lot of good articles on the site explaning the Nonrev process so I would spend some time studying this site...especially ATL to Europe on DL. Other airports I have Nonreved out of or into are:
Frankfurt (FRA) - very busy airport...pretty standard as far as comfort is concerned. Once flight is ready, you go to the gate which is a separate room. You wait there until you are called along with the reserved seat passengers.
Stuttgart (STR) - pretty small airport and easy to get around. Delta has one gate with a bunch of chairs....not to comfy.

LGW is a really nice airport. It is big and busy, but has a lot of shops and places to eat....plus a bunch of comfy chairs with a screen showing all the flights coming in and out so you don't have to wait at your gate.

Let me know if I can help anymore. Good luck!!

My friend has been working at Delta since 9/98, is that what you meant by how far down I'll be on the NRSA list? So my friend's seniority is going to a better determinant of my chance of getting on a flight than how early I list myself on the flight or how early I show up at the airport? If that's the case, is 7 years good enough?

Yeah, that is what I meant. There really isn't any good way to tell if your friends senority is "good" enough...it all depends on who else is listed on the flight. If you have a bunch of buddy passes on the list with less senority, then yes, your friends hire date would get you higher on the list....but then if there are a lot of buddy passes with earlier hire dates, then you would be pretty low on the list...which is obvious. Then remember you are still below any employees and family members...so that is where it gets tricky. The best thing to do is just have your friend check the standby list for you everyday prior to your departure for about 4 or 5 days. This should give you a good indication if you will make it or not.

I forgot to address your second statement about listing. It doesn't matter when you list. For example, as a buddy pass, you could list on the flight months in advance. Someone with higher priority, like an employee of family member, could show up at the airport and list the same day and still beat all the buddy passes.

Thanks for the insider info. My Delta friend works out of CVG and is not in the reservation/ticketing department so he doesn't seem to be very familiar with all the details regarding to using buddy pass, let alone travel load between JFK and Europe. The website you sent me is current not working. Maybe I'll try later. I've also heard about Delta's internal site called TravelNet (<a href="https://dlnet.delta.com/deltapassport/login.jsp" target="_blank">https://dlnet.delta.com/deltapassport/login.jsp</A>). Does that site give the actual availability like TravelLine?

I've already compiled the list of flights between JFK and most Europe destinations. And I just found out that Delta no longer permits buddy pass on code share flights so the list is down to just 11 flights between JFK and Europe (10 cities that we won't mind going) each direction, with another 11 between ATL and Europe as backups. So it's not too bad to type in all that in TravelLine if we (me and the girl I am going to Europe with) divide up the load. I guess my other big question is that is it possible to fly open jaw with DL buddy pass? If that's possible, I can just wait till a few days before returning to call to see the return flight from which city is more available and pay a little extra money to change to it. That'll definitely increase my chance of getting back on time.

So you think June is busier than July? I don't know why I had the impression that it's the other way around. And it's good to know that Tues/Wed are good for outbound and Tues/Wed/Thur is good for return. Our trip has been extended from 10+ days to 14+ days since there are just too many places we want to go to. So maybe we'll do 6/28+ to 7/12+.

As for traveling within Europe, I am familiar with the low cost carriers. I know it would save a lot of time but Eurail provides a lot more flexibility. We are trying to be as spontaneous as possible (as in having a list of places we want to go to but depending on how much we like once place, we may stay a little longer or shorter before moving on, etc). That's probably going make any sort of reservation more than one or two day ahead of time difficult. I'll definitely try to plan ahead as much as possible with weekend hotel rooms. I'll bring a huge list of hotels for all the cities we may visit so we won't end up homeless at 2AM in the morning at a unfamiliar city. And as a backup, I can actually afford expensive hotels if we have to, we are just trying to do the budget travel thing because we think it'll make a great experience for us, especially since we are both turning 26 later this year.

Nobody knows?