I’m a long-time frequent flyer with Delta Airlines. I’m a Platinum Medallion, having flown over 750K miles with them alone, and will probably fly another 100K this year, if not more. I’ve stayed loyal to Delta all these years because I used to believe that there was a benefit to doing so.
Not anymore.
Since Delta recently revamped their frequent flyer “Skymiles” program with a bunch of supposed improvements, all I’ve seen is how it’s hurt my experience with the airline. As a frequent flyer, the main benefits I care about are 1) international upgrades and 2) free tickets for my family to use. The recent “improvements” to Delta’s Skymiles program have made both of these benefits almost impossible to use.
In my experience over the last year, there is almost never availability to use Skymiles for a free seat, unless you book at least a year out. Once you’ve realized “there’s no availability”, the agent will say you can spend *double* the miles to get one. That means 50,000 miles for a free domestic ticket, where it used to only cost 25,000. So basically the value of my miles just decreased by 50%. Nice.
My wife and I recently took a trip to New York, which cost us 100,000 miles, and that was coach, mind you. Last year our family took a trip to Cancun, and it cost 360,000 for 6 tickets, again coach. I haven’t been able to get a coach ticket for under 50,000 miles in recent memory.
With international upgrades, it’s even harder to get the benefit. I receive 6 complimentary “system wide upgrade certificates” each year from Delta. One certificate allows me to upgrade a one-way flight from Salt Lake City to London, for example, and given the difference between business class and coach, this is VERY valuable to me. However, in order to use these certificates, first you have to purchase an appropriate “upgradeable fare” or the trip doesn’t qualify. The difference between an “upgradeable fare” and a non-upgradeable fare didn’t used to be huge, but at some point within the last few years, the difference has changed dramatically. Now an upgradeable fare usually costs 2-3x more than the lowest-priced coach fare.
This makes me question why it’s called an “upgrade” because it sure feels like I’m paying for the benefit.
For example, a recent ticket I booked to London cost me $2800 for an “upgradeable fare”. I could have flown coach for only $1000. Another recent ticket I booked for Dubai priced in at $3500 for an “upgradeable fare” and coach only cost $1500. Not sure that’s much of a perk anymore, especially since my own company, not to mention our clients, are not willing to pay those sky-high fares.
The other problem with international upgrades, is that they almost never have availability, which is the same problem as getting a free seat. So even if you *are* willing to pay the exorbitant fares, it’s likely you won’t be able to find an available “upgrade” seat. Again, they must only reserve a few seats on each flight for “upgrades” because it’s very hard to find them. In my opinion, a seat is a seat, and if they have some available, why shouldn’t I be able to cash in on this touted benefit? There have been numerous times over the years where I’ve had to sit in coach, when the plane actually had empty seats in business class, and I qualified for an upgrade. That’s the kind of thing that makes for very unhappy customers.
Because of this reality, I often have to let many of my Platinum system-wide upgrade certificates go unused. I simply can’t find a way to use them. I currently have 4 in hand that expire at the end of Feb, and I most likely won’t be able to redeem them, despite all of the international travel I have coming up. Over the next two months, I’m traveling to Dubai, London, and Amsterdam, and I won’t be able to redeem the certificates I’m holding in my hand because of exorbitant fares or because no “upgrade” seats exist (despite plenty of “regular” seats being available ). Last year was similar, but it seems to be getting worse each year. Ultimately, these certificates have lost most of their real value to me.
Even though they’ve effectively taken away these major benefits I care about, if Delta actually *treated me* like I was special because of my loyalty to the company all of these years, that alone might be enough to keep me as a relatively happy customer. But along with the other changes, I’ve also noticed a steady decrease in customer service, especially relative to their most loyal customers.
Recently, I had a situation where my client booked an international flight for me (through an international travel agency) – they spent over double what they needed to thinking I’d be able to upgrade . Once the information reached me a few weeks later and I contacted Delta about using my certificates to upgrade, I found out that no upgrade seats were available (of course). There were several aspects to this situation that I felt were unique and out of my control, which I explained to Delta hoping for some special consideration. Ultimately my client and I were taking the hit.
My client was paying much more than they needed to and I wasn’t going to be able to use my upgrade benefit on an extremely long flight. Despite the fact that Delta had 8 seats available in business class, they weren’t willing to release one to me. There was no consideration given to my status or the uniqueness of the situation. I spoke to several different Delta agents, and each one dug their heals in further, saying there was nothing they could do for me. These type of responses continue to surprise me. I’m a long-time loyal customer. I will most likely fly over 100K miles this year. And I run a company who hires people to travel around the world and teach people. These points didn’t matter to them.
Conclusion: they simply don’t care about my happiness as one of their most loyal customers over the years. Very short-sighted imo.
So given all of this, why should I stay loyal to Delta moving forward? What’s in it for me? My company and clients will spend much less money by looking for the best opportunity for each trip. There don’t seem to be many tangible perks for me as a Platinum Medallion anymore. And in situations where business class is justifiable, I can probably find business class fares near the levels I’ve been paying for my “upgradeable fares” on Delta. This seems like a much more logical path forward, and Delta has made that clear for me. Thank you, Delta.
As an owner of a company, I’ve taken some notes on how *not* to do things. Once a company stops doing what’s right for their customers, especially their most loyal customers, it’s a very bad sign for the future. One of our stated missions at Pluralsight is to always do what’s best for our customers, and we believe that if we’re true to that, we will always have a successful business. I really hope Delta can turn this one around.