My fiance and I booked our flights from Los Angeles to Australia six months ago. This morning, less than two weeks before our wedding and honeymoon, we received an automated message that our flight to Sydney was “rescheduled” from Sunday night (Oct. 11) to Monday night (Oct. 12). Before getting into any other details, the use of the term “schedule change” seems disingenuous at best for moving a flight a whole day. I understand a few hours here or there, but this clearly was a decision in which Delta realized it did not have enough passengers for both flights, so they cancelled one and consolidated it with another. Even better is that despite booking our flight six months in advance, no seats next to each other are available on our “rescheduled” flight. Thus, my new bride and I will be sitting in different parts of the plane on our honeymoon flight.

The biggest problem, however, is that flying to Australia involves crossing the dateline, which means we now arrive in Sydney on Oct. 14 instead of Oct. 13. Losing a whole day throws a wrench into all of our travel plans (made months in advance, including non-refundable flights to other parts of the country).

It obviously goes without saying that I called Delta for an explanation. The first person with whom I spoke told me they have no customer service reachable by phone, and thus, I needed to write a letter to Delta’s corporate HQ. The second was…non-plussed, at best, but did offer me $200 in travel vouchers. While this was not satisfactory, I did say I would take the vouchers since we will be losing money on our accomodations in Australia. At that point, she put me on hold, and then came back on the line to inform me that her supervisor would not approve the travel vouchers because Delta has “the right” to unilaterally cancel flights without cause (even though it extracts fees from consumers who need to change flights).

I then had a lengthy discussion with this supervisor, Samantha. She opened this discussion by congratulating me on my upcoming nuptials, which I found amusing. She then commenced to inform me that she has no power at her level to do anything to try to make me happy. You would think, for example, that perhaps Delta would offer to upgrade us to first class so that we could sit together. Nope. Thus, I asked for her supervisor. She informed me that there is no way to contact anyone with any power to make any decisions short of sending a letter to corporate HQ.

I have sent this letter, but expect nothing. It is clear to me, given the comments made to me by the several company representatives with whom I spoke, that Delta is unconcerned with customer service. While I am stuck with my flight to Australia, the lost money on a hotel room, and the lost day of time in Australia, I will never fly Delta again, regardless of cost or necessity, and I will do everything in my power to make sure none of my wedding guests get on a Delta flight.