Normally I reserve this for companies and people doing really good things, for life is too short to spend much time on the negative. So I'll keep this short.
I've earned and banked about 170,000 miles on Delta's Sky Miles program, but it's hard to use them efficiently out of Denver. Many trips require stopovers, but I can live with that. A free round trip is 25,000 miles, and that would be fine, if they were available, but for most destinations of interest to me, they are not.
However, for double that amount, Delta can usually find flights. The effect is to devalue the sky miles by making so few flights available at the standard rate, that customers are forced to pay double. This frustrates me too.
Now, to add insult to injury, if you're fortunate enough to find flights that work, but want to fly within 21 days, there's an extra $75.00 "Rapid Redemption Fee." I discovered today that my "free flight" from Denver to Sacramento, with an unwanted stopover in Salt Lake City on the way out, and another in Los Angeles on the way back, would cost me $110.00 plus my 25,000 Delta Sky Miles, if I chose to take it. Instead, I've chosen to pay a little more money, and fly Frontier Airlines nonstop both ways for $188.38. $214.18 with fees and taxes.
Before making that decision, I called the office of Delta's CEO, Richard Anderson, 404-715-2600, and spoke with his assistant, Alicia Watson. Alicia informed me that she has the authority to waive the fee, but chooses not to do so. She was polite and professional, and, in my opinion, dead wrong.
My frustration comes from the absurdity of the whole situation. Frequent flyer programs are supposed to improve customer loyalty. In this case, the program has exactly the opposite effect. So, I'm buying my tickets on Frontier Airlines this trip. I hope that in the future Richard and Alicia will reconsider this policy for all of their customers. There's nothing like good customer service to get back on the right track after a bankruptcy, and this example is nothing like good customer service.
Now the good news, if you're part of the Frontier Airlines Frequent flyer program, EarlyReturns, most domestic flights are just 15,000 miles, Mexico is 25,000 miles, availability out of Denver is generally pretty good, and they don't try to nickel and dime you to death with silly fees.
Thanks for listening. I think I'm feeling better now. Taking a deep breath. Ahhhh.
Richard, Alicia, and anyone else who's interested, please feel free to comment below.
A Blogger far more famous than I talked about his "Dell Hell" nightmare with Customer service at Dell Computers. This eventually resulted in tremendous turnarounds at Dell.
How frustrating, that companies don't seem to understand the meaning of customer service.
John, I feel your pain. How interesting that Delta doesn't seem to know how to create customer loyalty, that they're actually doing the opposite. Please check out the link below, as you inspired me to blog about an experience I had, which motivated me to teach my employees a better way of handling customers' needs without having to check with management.
515.00 and counting for a ticket that should be free. SKYMILES SCAM!!!
PLEASE DELIVER THIS TO MR. RICHARD ANDERSON @ DELTA'S CORPORATE CUSTOMER CARE OFFICE
I would like Mr. Anderson to receive this email. I will certainly mail him a copy of my email correspondence and take the added mesasure of faxing it to him as well.
I have--without exaggeration--been on the phone for 13 hours today trying to book a reservation through my Amex Delta Sky miles card. I have a reservation on hold that must be confirmed by 1/5/08. I would like to use my skymiles so that I wouldn't have to pay for the ticket. I have 90K miles and need 10k to complete my reservation. So, foolishly, call the number on my card and they were fast to suggest that I upgrad to Platinum at a charge of 135.00 for an additional 10K points--that they later tell me won't be able to used for 2 months. Stilly trying to confirm my fight (which isn't until June) I then bought 10K points for $295.00 and they will not let me use those either. SO, 13 hours, 430 dollars later I cannot confirm the reservation that I'm trying to book for June of 2008. I have spoken to 17 rude, unsympathetic, unempathetic "Customer Service" agents who--at this point--only serve to add to the tragedy that is my experience with Delta / Amex.
I am in charge of travel for a company with quite a few employees. BY 5pm tomorrow, I will personally ensure that not only do we cancel our american express cards, but we also NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES USE DELTA AIR LINES. This is the sort of situation that deserves a documenttary.
What's this? I've just been informed that There's another 85.00 charge for I don't know what. That brings my charges up to 515.00--for a reservation that should be free because I have the skymiles. This is absolutely unbelieveable. I cannot wait to write about this on Tripadvisor.com as well as any and every other blog I can find. Dramatics aside, I would not believe this story if someone else told it to me. .
Can't get seats using Redemption Credits on many of Frontier's destinations
In spite of all the hype about the Frontier Early Returns program, my experience is turning out to be less rewarding. My wife and I have accumulated more than a hundred thousand miles of credit and have been unable to get three concurrent tickets using the credited miles to virtually anywhere. Frontier only allows a limited number of seats on a flight and in a lot of cases there are apparently none. We wanted to treat our grand-daughter to a trip to DC this summer.....Frontier said no way! Couldn't arrange anything to Florida or Mexico either. If someone knows what the secret is to be able to use Frontier's program for anything other than single one-way trips to untoward destinations.....please let me know!
My experience with Frontier has been been very positive, so I did some checking. Gary, please consider calling Frontier's Customer Relations people at their corporate office, 800-265-5505, Option 2, then Option 1.
Gary,
I spoke with Kevin today in the Customer Relations department at Frontier Airlines. He asks that you call someone in his department so that they can resolve this with you directly. If you do so, please come back with another comment to let us all know what happened.
While Delta's policies still frustrate me, the customer service provided by Pat Smith was wonderful.
by John Gaudio, Posted 11:30 AM. Found by Google, 6:16 AM, 2/28/08. (approx. 19 hours)
Pat knows her stuff. She was able to route me with just one stop each way from Denver Colorado to South Bend Indiana, and to do it for 37,500 miles. She was pleasant, knowledgeable, efficient, and easy to understand.
While I still disagree with Delta's "Rapid Redemption Fee" policy, which imposes a penalty of $75.00 for booking Sky Miles travel with less than 21 days advanced notice, I don't mind the $20.00 fee charged for making the reservation through Pat, rather than making it over the Internet. Her knowledge and expertise add more that twenty dollars worth of value to the process. The "Rapid Redemption Fee" adds no value, and strikes me as just one more way for Delta to reduce the value of the Sky Miles I've earned.
Yesterday I spoke with a different Delta representative, a woman who seemed to have an Indian accent. It was difficult to understand her, and clearly she had nowhere near Pat's experience and expertise. The difference was enormous. With Pat I was clearly working with a professional who communicated clearly and understood how to use the system to find solutions for her customer. When working with the off shore representative I had to constantly repeat myself, and to constantly ask the woman on the other end to repeat herself. Worse yet, she offered no insights or suggestions. It was as if she simply went to a database and told me what it said.
My conversation with Pat was delightful and productive. My conversation with the off shore representative was frustrating and fruitless.
I still haven't heard anything from Delta's CEO, Richard Anderson, or his assistant, Alicia Watson, on my original post, or any of the comments to Delta Hell. I probably never will.
Happily, Delta does have some outstanding people, like Patricia Smith, working for them. Perhaps over time the people at the top will learn from the people in the trenches, and the quality of Delta's policies will come close to the quality of some of their representatives, like Pat Smith.
You sat a 4 year old in the exit row away from every member of her family after 3 requests were made by her family to change this. This wasn't a matter of convenience, it was a matter of legality.
I "cut and paste" this from the complaint I submitted to Delta.com:
The information below is for my 4-year old daughter, Mary.
Shortly after my husband and I booked the tickets, I went online to reserve our seats. We were unable to do so via the online portal, so I called customer service. I explained that my 4-year old was travelling with me and my husband and ONE of us needed to sit next to her. I didn't request that all 3 of us have seats together. The customer service agent said that we's have to request the seats at the gate.
After arriving at LAX, we went to the Crown Room. I asked the Crown room agent if he could assign at least one of us a seat with our daughter. He said that the seats were still currently being held by the gate agent, but they would be released and to come back to the Crown Room counter around 10:30 to get our new boarding passes (10:30 was the boarding time for the flight as it was scheduled to deaprt at 11 AM). We did exactly as instructed. When we got back to the counter, the Crown Room agent I had spoken with previously was not there. I asked the new agent if he had left our new boarding passes. He had not. I had to re-explain the situation and wait for the woman to type things on her computer. She told us that the gate agent never relased the seats and that we needed to leave instantly to make the flight. We still don't have seat assignments.
We hurry to the gate. I ask the gate agent if he has our boarding passes. He does. All three of us are seated in individual seats. I ask if he can put one adult next to our daughter. He says that he can't becuase we should have gotten there earlier. This makes me very frustrated since we arrived at the Crown Room with plenty of time and were told by the Crown Room agent that we could pick up our boarding passes with seat assignements upon exiting the Crown Room.
Best (worst?) of all, our 4-year old was assigned a seat in the exit row of the aircraft. He still wouldn't change it. We got on the plane and the flight attendant accomodated our seat re-arragement because she had to since the FAA requires that no one under the age of 15 be seated in an exit row. I tried 3 times to get this straightened out with Delta agents (1 person on the phone and two at the airport). Delta didn't try at all. This is really, really bad. I have created a SkyMiles account for Mary (our daughter) and the number is xxxxxxxxxx. I am expecting that 50,000 miles be deposited for Delta's incompetence or that you send $400 in flight vouchers to the address above.
Delta responded with (this is a summary): You were lucky you had your seats honored at all.
So you think you Still have Delta SKYMILES in your account? Don't count on it!!
Good luck on actually being able to use those promo miles in the future!!! Delta skymiles frequent flyer program expired my 62,176 miles with no notification this January, 2009. I only found this out when I was trying to use some of my miles for a flight last month. I had received all their junk mail, but no mail or phone call came from Delta to notify me that they retired my miles, even though I have the statement showing they expire on December 31 of this year, 2009! I even called last year to confirm that I had those miles. I was relocating and had not sent them my new email, so they didn't bother to contact me by mail or phone, as my other four frequent flyer accounts have done. If you don't have email, you don't hear from them unless it is to promote a new credit card. When I called, they said they couldn't reach me without my new email address. They claimed there was no recent activity on my account, but I used 2 of their partners to earn miles, giving my ff number and sent the copies to Delta of the statements showing use of 1-800-flowers, and Best Western motels. I thought there was miles posted from that, but they gave no indication in their reply stating that they would show my miles as still active. I will no longer use Delta/Northwest Airlines, or any of their partners, since they take miles earned honestly and send me an email saying many other people have had the same thing happen to them, so they can't help all of us and won't do a thing to restore the miles any of us had taken away. It sure sounds like they didn't want any extra baggage like our free flights to get in the way of the merger!!! Here is the email I received after I wrote to the Delta CEO, Richard Anderson, enclosing my letter with my skymiles statement showing the 62,176 active Delta Skymiles with an expiration date of Dec 31, 2009: Thank you for your correspondence concerning your SkyMiles to our Chief Executive Officer, Richard Anderson. I've been asked to respond on his behalf.
We regret you were unaware of the expiration guidelines associated with the SkyMiles program. We try to ensure our members are aware of these guidelines by providing them on our website at delta.com/skymiles, as well as listing the expiration date on account summary statements following any account activity.
While we would like to offer special consideration in cases such as yours, we are unable to honor the many requests that we receive from others in similar situations. We follow a consistent policy to ensure that Delta is fair to everyone in our SkyMiles program. Accordingly, we must respectfully decline your request. Again, thank you for writing. We recognize this was not the response you expected to receive and trust you will understand our position. We value your business and hope you will continue to choose Delta.
Sincerely,
Lori Langford Coordinator Customer Care
Eileen,
Excellent Post! Please forgive me for the delay in getting your comment posted. My error. It amazes me that Delta keeps any of their customers. The new baggage charges on most airlines, Southwest Airlines being the notable exception, are also absurd. I remember a time when airlines provided excellent customer service. Sadly, it seems that for most airlines, those days are past. I, for one, am making a concerted effort to support Southwest Airlines and others that still care about customer service. Perhaps if enough of us take this approach the others will learn their lessons, either by reversing their customer antagonistic policies, or by going out of business, whichever comes first.
By the way, have you considered suing them in small claims court? I'm not an attorney, but if they do business in your area, you might be able to file a small claims suit locally for under a hundred dollars. I'll donate the first $25.00 if you go for it. Document the amount of money you had to spend with another airline to get the travel that they owed you, and claim that, plus your court costs, as damage. It might just get their attention.
