Delta SkyMiles Platinum and Diamond members get to choose from a variety of benefits. One Diamond member – with around half a million qualifying miles and over $50,000 in spending this year – was thrilled to be able to gift Gold status to two people.
He’s always gifted Gold to his wife. United just gives a spouse of a million miler the same status that the member has. But he wanted his wife to be reasonably well cared for when she travels without him. Now that he had the option to gift a second Gold, he offered it to his father. Taking care of family is one of the most important things that a brand can do, and it’s why Hyatt’s ‘Guest of Honor’ benefit is so special.
When he went to enter account information for his wife and his father, he got an error that one person already had the status so he couldn’t proceed (his wife’s status hadn’t yet expired). So he removed his wife from the submission, and processed the upgrade for his father, figuring he’d going back later and process his wife’s Gold status.
But it turns out that the page can only be submitted once, and submitted just one Gold upgrade ‘uses’ them both – even though it doesn’t say that anywhere on the submission page.
- After waiting three hours on hold for Customer Care, he gave up and wrote in. After two months, Delta informed him that the case was closed with no update.
- He submitted another case, but it went into the either. So a couple of weeks later he submitted a third case. That prompted a phone call. The agent explained that he screwed up and he was out of luck.
- It’s in the choice benefits terms and conditions that he wasn’t even able to find on his own. The list of choice benefits, where gifting status is listing, don’t flag to look for them.
All he’s asking is for some kind of warning – bold, or a popup – on the screen for submitting two elite status nominations that if you only submit one you can’t go back and submit the other later.
It is amazing to me that Delta cannot or will not accommodate him on this:
Wow, we really didn’t make this clear or easy, and the way we set this up means you lost out on a benefit of your status. Let’s fix this for you, it really doesn’t cost us anything extra, and you’ll appreciate that and continue to be a good customer.
He’s not looking for anything extra, and he’s a customer who easily earns Diamond status even under Delta’s disastrous qualifying rules that they walked back, exceeding them by 50%.
How hard would it be not to make the moment of benefit redemption feel like a gotcha?
Corporate America at its finest. That is what happens when you don’t have empowered employees and simply have robots following a script. Wish that flyer could move his business and tell Delta why he did.
Answer: It’s Delta. Their arrogance is overwhelming.
@ Delta — This guy should take his $50k and open a United PassPlus accout that comes with Global Services status. Forget Delta and their arrogance.
It’s his inability to understanding his choice benefits. In a calendar year you are allowed to gift one medallion status. Why would you try to gift your father before the calendar year is over. This is on him not Delta. So now your father has gold status and your wife not anymore. He should have waited or spoken to a Medallion CS
Delta is a premium airline for premium people.
Paging Tim Dunn…
It’s like their global upgrade vouchers which, on many routes, even if attempting to book on the day the flights first are issued (i.e. 331 days out) are only available for waitlist or, worse, not even then. A true case of thanks for all your loyalty, but we’re gonna make that gift you thought you were getting real hard to use and benefit from
I see what you’re doing here, and it’s funny.
Delta hates their frequent fliers and has since Richard Anderson. Those loyal to DL are like abused spouses always making excuses for why they deserve the bad treatment and how lucky they are (“As a diamond, I was moved to a middle seat in economy comfort for free and I’m only #27 on the 1st class upgrade list!”). It’s really sad.
Premium rejection.
This is a prime indicator of the leadership culture within that Delta organization.
Agents are not delegated to do the right thing, or, they are delegated and ordered to extract every last dollar of ‘savings’ as job one.
This seems consistent with the gutting of the SkyMiles loyalty program. Perhaps it is indicative.of the different cultural upbringing of their leader – a caste society amongst Skymiles elites. Imagine if this guy was a 2023 Silver – they’d probably close his account.
I find something in this as “fishy”. I have been just a Platinum member for the last few years, and have called Delta on at least 8 occasions over the last 6 months at various times and days. I have waited on the phone between “0 minutes” and up to a longest of “4 minutes” on only one occasion, and remember Diamond get higher priority than Platinum. If this part wait time is “fishy”, how much more in the facts of the issue are off base as well.
Such unjustified arrogance there
#dumpdelta. Over-promising, under delivering.
@Doug “abused spouse” made me laugh but perfect description of what these companies do to customers. The only difference is that instead of the ER doctor asking how your arm got broken you get a gate supervisor that asks “do we have a problem here?” when your upgrade doesn’t clear.
I think this story is odd. Why would a high elite wait on hold that long?
He deserved it.
Paging Tim Dung in 3,..2,..1,..
We here at Deta are thrilled to have such loyal SkyMiles members That notice the “Delta Difference “
@Eric Carey: He’s not calling the Give Delta Money (reservations) line. He’s talking to the Don’t Spend on Loyalty (SkyMiles) folks, which explains the difference in service levels.
This doesn’t sound like a “nightmare” for Delta so much as it does for the customer. But the customer knew better. We all make mistakes, and hopefully we grow from them.
Play “Premium” Delta games, win worthless Delta prizes. I’ll bet the Diamond focus group also loved the change! Soon the Medallion upgrade list will be limited to 5 full screens at the gate.
Que up the TD 1,000 word response in 3…2…1.
Nothing to see here. Everyone move along.
The fact that Tim Dunn lives rent free in the head of so many makes me giggle.
RE: The fact that Tim Dunn lives rent free in the head of so many makes me giggle.
No – he’s not living rent free in anyone’s head. He is the posterboy of someone who is blinded to a certain airline, just like DCS to Hilton.
@John L He is who he is and how he responds isn’t something new around here. Knowing this, he still gets under the skin of many, they make user names mocking him, and you don’t think that’s living rent free in their heads? Really?
The title of this article should be called first world problems…
I don’t believe most of his story. No one waits on hold on the Diamond Medallion line for three hours. If he’s a Diamond he’d know gifting Gold status amounts to a wasted benefit choice. Gold gets you absolutely nothing. I’m a Diamond Medallion and only about half the time am I upgraded to First. Better to gift his wife a Delta Reserve AmEx if he wants her to have SkyClub access.
Delta offers premium elite status gifts to its premium, sophisticated customers.
Ed just wants to THINK his airline is premium. I’ve been on 3 flights in last month. All were late. Upgraded to Comfort Plus as a Platinum. Asked for 2 vodkas. Was told ‘new rule’ is ONE and IF they have extra after the whole plane, they will come back with another bottle. Of course that did not happen. The snacks are Sunchips with about 6 chips in them. But worse, when you land there is not enough labor to get the jet to the jetway so even when you LAND on time, you dont pull up on time. Not been upgraded to first in 2 years as a Platinum. I miss Richard when they really did want to ‘rise’.
I had similar situation. I accidentally switched out number when entering frequent flyer number and they gave gold to the number I entered, not my wife. Despite fact that I had her name and other info correct. I called immediately and they would not fix it. So some other person got Gold status from me and I got a very disappointed wife!
Although this is a CHASE bank story it is relevant because of the outcome. I recently needed to have a reservation changed because the airline concerned, Virgin Atlantic, is not flying the Tel Aviv London route at present. Virgin has an agreement with El Al whereby they can issue protected flight reservations. The change has to be made by the issuing Travel agent, in my case CHASE Travel, or the airline if booked directly. In short none of their agents were capable of carrying out what Virgin tells me is a simple task. I have had a CHASE Sapphire Preferred credit card for many years and spend quite healthily on it. One morning this week I sent an email to the office of Allison Beer, chief executive officer for Chase’s Card and Connected Commerce businesses. Within a few hours, I received a call from a Travel Manager. The problem had actually been solved an hour or two earlier by a highly focused and professional agent, Several of the “consultants” and “supervisors” were going to be sent for refresher training courses and the Manager would like to offer me 30,000 CHASE Ultimate rewards points for my “experience” with CHASE Travel. Additionally, he sent me his email with a contact number if I had any further questions. Now that is a way to run a company! I had thought this might be goodbye to CHASE but not now!
I once had a (small) problem like that with Rayovac batteries. It wasn’t a big deal, but they owed me a $20 coupon and I was entitled to it. Given that I’m retired and have quite a bit of time on my hands, we went back and for forth with e-mails every few days for over 5 weeks, with everything from their end (beyond their first response) being ….: “we’ve escalated it”… but with no resolution .
I sent them one last e-mail telling them that if I didn’t get an affirmative response within 3 days, I would e-mail the entire 5 week e-mail trail to the top five executives at Energizer (who owns Rayovac), if for no other reason that to alert them how they treat their customers (as well as their time spent repeatedly responding to me over 5 weeks but not resolving the problem).
My affirmative response never came, and I WAS able to uncover the e-mail addresses for 3 of the top 5 Energizer executives (including the CEO and the chief Legal Officer) and sent the email trail to them. Now I’m not foolish enough to believe any of them actually read it, but assuredly one of their executive assistants did, and promptly got on the phone to their counterpart at Rayovac and told them to …………… “take care of this”.
Low and behold, within TWO days I received the $20 coupon sent by EXPRESS MAIL.
It’s never enough. Corporate greed at it’s finest. The US airlines are on a race to the bottom. It is one of the worst industries in America.