Delta Has Extended All Voucher Expiration Dates & Its Global Travel Waiver

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The headline-grabbing announcement we got from Delta yesterday was the one that let us know that the airline was making the quest for Medallion elites status considerably easier for this year, but a more important announcement was also released at the same time – Delta travel vouchers will no longer expire in 2021 and the airline’s global waiver has been extended.

Delta Extends Travel Voucher Expiration Dates

Almost a year ago, Delta announced that all tickets purchased prior to 17 April 2020 for travel after 1 March 2020 would have their validity extended to 31 December 2022 (i.e any travel vouchers issued as a result of customers with eligible tickets canceling their plans would be valid for travel up until the end of 2022).

Tickets booked on or after 17 April 2020 and which were subsequently cancelled by customers, resulted in travel vouchers with an expiry date that was 12 months from the date of booking and, as we’re now in April 2021 and as most people haven’t been able or willing to travel in the past 12 months, there are a lot of vouchers in the system that are scheduled to expire in the coming weeks. Well, that was the case up until yesterday.

Delta has now announced two things:

• All travel vouchers that are set to expire in 2021 will now expire on 31 December 2022.
• Any travel vouchers issued in 2021 will expire no earlier than 31 December 2022.

Effectively, some Delta travel vouchers (vouchers that were due to expire this month) will now be valid for 20 months longer than they would otherwise have been valid.

Note: An expiration date of 31 December 2022 means that all travel has to be complete by that date (this isn’t a “book by” date) so anyone holding a Delta travel voucher shouldn’t plan on using it for travel into 2023.

Delta Extends Its Global Travel Waiver

As well as announcing the extension of the travel voucher expirations, Delta has also confirmed that it has extended its global travel waiver policy to cover all fares booked through 30 April 2021.

For all bookings originating in North America (excluding Basic Economy bookings), this extension will make no difference as Delta eliminated change/cancellation fees for such bookings last year. It will, however, make a difference to anyone booking a Delta fare originating outside of the US or anyone booking a Delta Basic Economy fare.

Delta’s new policy states that any bookings made by 30 April 2021 (including Basic Economy bookings) will not incur change or cancellation penalties should a customer later change their mind and decide not to travel. In such circumstances, a customer will be issued with an eCredit (travel voucher) equal in value to the cost of their original booking that will be valid through 31 December 2022.

This puts Delta’s policy in line with United Airlines and ahead of that of American Airlines whose Basic Economy fares are now once again liable for change/cancelation fees.

Bottom Line

If you have a Delta eCredit/TravelVoucher that was issued in 2021 its expiration date has now been extended to 31 December 2022 and anyone booking with Delta by 30 April 2021 will have any change/cancellation fees (that would ordinarily be due) waived and will be issued with an eCredit/Travel voucher valid through 31 December 2022.