I'll save you all the details, simply because i don't feel that writing a long story about my travel "experience" wednesday will be nearly as cathartic as one might suppose

Short version:
Original Routing: SFO-ATL-STL - paid ticket (return journey)
New Routing: SFO-ATL-ORD-STL

Delta delayed departure resulted in missed connection at ATL. Stupid machine told me to go to another flight (RDU) departing in 12 minutes from another terminal so i ran there but plane also pushed back. (question: why doesn't machine actually recognize little facts like time and logistics before auto-rebooking you...?)

Went to sky club to get on some other routing home, since next flight to st louis was cancelled and the one after that was overbooked because they had moved all the people from the cancelled flight to that one. So even as a platinum who was on an EARLIER STL flight i was still out of luck. "We can get you back on the afternoon flight getting in at 4 pm". I explained that my family and I were being relocated for work to SF, and the moving trucks were arriving that day so I *had* to be home by noon. (Even if i had missed my first flight there were two following ones to get me to STL in time - i *had* to be in SF the day before for work, so circumstances were what they were).

Apparently NO other options were available (via other hubs) so i finally asked if they could get me to Chicago and then put me on the next AA or UA flight from there.

Was told that they could get me to ORD, but they would not put me on another airline because it wasn't their fault (although technically the original delay WAS there fault as it was due to a maintenance issue in SFO according to the gate agent at the time).

As I had no choice - i *had* to be home - i booked a 1-way on AA from ORD-STL for $170 and made it home only 4 hours late.

Funny how Delta chose to lose a multi-year platinum who earned it through international business class flights (paid, not upgraded) for a measly $170.

I'm currently burning miles on goods from their shopping platform, so any suggestions on the best way to use up my last 100k+ miles would be much appreciated.

Oh, and I have some upgrades that i won't be using so speak up