Utah man fights for full airline credit after an overseas currency plummets in value

SANDY — Point to anywhere on a map and chances are pretty good Dave Zwahlen has been there.

“We’ve been all over the world,” he said. “We’ve been to all seven continents.”

But a trip he decided not to take is causing him grief. Last year, Zwahlen scuttled his plans for a river cruise of the Nile.

“We canceled it because of all the unrest over there,” he said.

Zwahlen said he got airline credit for his one-way Delta Air Lines ticket from Cairo back home to Salt Lake, which he paid $874.66 for.

“And they priced it in Egyptian pounds,” he said. “Which didn’t make a lot of sense to me but that’s what they did.”

Delta gave him a credit worth £26,895.80 in 900 Egyptian pounds. But the credit proved to be worth a lot less when he tried to use it this year.

“They keep insisting that because the Egyptian pound devalued, that my ticket wasn’t worth that much anymore,” Zwahlen said.

When Egypt devalued its currency in March, its currency plummeted nearly 40% in value instantly. Some 7,000 miles away, that apparently knocked his Delta flight credit down by $300.

“I said that’s not my problem,” he said. “I paid you in dollars.”

Zwahlen said even though he bought his ticket on Delta’s website from his home, Delta refuses to budge.

“I just feel like they didn’t treat me right,” he said when asked why he asked us to investigate.

The KSL Investigators reached out to Delta on his behalf. A spokesperson responded, “Delta has looked into this and will be contacting the customer today to make this right.”

And indeed, on that day, Zwahlen got his full credit for the flight, in US dollars.

“It’s not a lot of money, just kind of the principal, I think.”

On its website, Delta does say tickets purchased on its website will show up on your credit or debit card statements as sales made in the country from which travel originates. That’s how Zwahlen’s one-way ticket from Cairo wound up in Egyptian pounds.