Too funny. Could be some validation in what you are saying!!!

And for you people in the younger generation, (or possibly were not even born when the program came out), there was no "automation" per se to take advantage of when you joined back then. You mailed a card into Delta with all the key info about you, and in turn they mailed you back your number and FF package. And as I mentioned last year, and somebody put a photo of it on that thread, Delta sent you a nice little leather binder as part of the welcome to the DL FF program. Can't remember how long all of that took but it did not happen overnight. Everything was manual back in those days.

And again, for the younger generation, before automation came around, you had to mail, (yes mail...oh the horrors) your boarding passes into Delta to get credit. A white boarding pass was for a coach seat, a red boarding pass was for a first class seat.

As most people know, AA started this whole thing. Delta and Eastern QUICKLY followed, thinking this was a short term gimmick. Little did they know.