Feel yourself fortunate. A month ago, Delta changed a low award to Jakarta from NW stock to DL stock. Nothing else was changed except to change the ticket from 012 to 006 because I could not fly without the change. My account was suddenly lighter by 120000 miles. My call eventually reached a supervisor who promised to fix it. Since DL employees are not empowered to do anything (employee, please raise your hand so that we may schedule you to the use of the bathroom), it had to be fixed by another department via archaic message channels. He assured me that it would be fixed within two weeks.

Two days ago, I had cause to speak with an agent because the web-site would not allow me to book 2 revenue tickets to Sydney. Since my account was still missing the stolen miles, I asked for them to be reinstated. Yes, I explained that I thought it was outright dishonesty. About 15 minutes later with the help of the agent, his supervisor and some ghostly other employee in "the place where we reverse all evidence of theft" my miles were again back in the account.

Lack of empowerment is reminiscent of the worst of Eastern European bureaucracy during the cold war. It is time to rectify this situation, unfortunately, I have over a million miles in my account. I guess, I could book two awards from LAX to NRT which would use up all the miles in my account but then I would have to buy a ticket on Southwest to get to LAX and back.