As someone with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of miles on Delta (all flown miles, none from credit card use) I tried to book probably my first Delta award ticket from the US to Africa in business class in December. I usually don't even bother trying to use my Delta miles, and would just use miles with other airlines I fly... but I figured I might as well make use of the miles for a long haul trip. After plugging in the flights the Delta website tried saying I needed over 300,000 miles for 1 ticket... excuse me. WHAT? The award chart stated I needed about 1/3 of that. I called up multiple different times because I had all the individual flights at the low award level that followed ALL listed rules for award flights. I had one very nice supervisor who concurred that all my flights followed the rules, but the system kept trying to separate the ticket out and charge me a lot more. Granted she got the number of miles WAY down from what it was saying online, but not to what it should have been, so on principle I never bought it. I ended up calling back again and talked to a HORRIBLE supervisor who is quite possibly the rudest person I've ever talked to at an airline, and that's saying something, and she couldn't do it either. I think between 6 different staff members I spent 5 hours on the phone, and at least 4 hours researching... to no avail! So I already know the Delta system is obviously designed NOT to find the cheapest tickets, AND even a supervisor, spending close to 2 hours, can't get it to follow it's own rules... and this was for a Medallion member who supposedly has access to "additional award space"
After removing the award charts I won't know if the system is screwing me over or not. These continued business choices make Delta a company I don't want to fly with. And guess what Delta, my corporate contract came up with you a few years ago, I've kept flying you because I've kept the status... but you constantly make things worst for your customers.
This supposed "elite plus" is ready to jump ship.
~Cheers-
~~Kyle