Not surprised at all at this story... I have a very poor opinion currently of DL Supervisors, both on the phone and in person (red coats). I find that they are orders of magnitude worse and less well informed than their front line counterparts, and serve merely as an escalation path to make 'annoying' customers go away.

I called in and needed a supervisor last week... She actually turned out helpful and ended up resolving my issue in the end, but it wasn't easy.

The call started with her reading back to me, 'form letter' style "I understand that you have an issue with XYZ. I am sorry for this. Here at delta we strive for....". Then, after actually taking a minute to parse what she had just read back to me and what the issue was, she put me on hold so could talk to...someone else? 3-4 times and try and resolve it. Each time, she came back and claimed she couldn't fix the issue; that the system wouldn't let her do it and it wasn't possible.

Eventually, after me suggesting a couple of alternative ways to make it work.. She was magically able to figure it out as a "one time exception" (despite it being policy). I've had this line used on me multiple times by DL agents, especially regarding SDCing on F fares, or with any issues regarding amex companion certs.

Similarly, recently, a very helpful Gate agent in DTW was assisting me with an upgrade. She got busy, so I want to the red coat at the gate to finish up... Despite me asking for his assistance very nicely, he was spouting lies left and right to get me to go away. If you don't want to help me, just say so... Making up nonsense that a less informed traveller might actually believe to get me to go away is not going to help anyone!