I'd keep looking. Seriously!

Wife & I had separate but identical tickets for MSP-STL this weekend, outbound 3/3, return 3/5. Mine was purchased 11/27, hers 12/7. After the initial hassle of researching & selecting our premium seating, the itineraries when through two rounds of major scheduling changes which (despite the claims of some on this board) were not corrected. I ended up having to make multiple calls to get the itineraries fixed (negative & three-minute connections seem a tad risky to me), research availabe seating and call again to re-arrange seating each time.

So the day of travel arrives. We checked in early a.m. and checked flight status later in the morning -- everything appeared to be normal. At the airport about 30 minutes before boarding was to start, I checked my email in the lounge, and we had a bunch of flight status notices from NorthWest. It turned out that hours before the flights (which were still operating normally) Delta had IDB'd us & rebooked us on Northwest WITHOUT OUR KNOWLEGE OR CONSENT. No phone call, no message, no nothing, original DL flights still operating. Really stellar example of customer service!

Also most every ticket I've purchased from Delta in the last few months has been plagued with schedule changes, and they are almost never corrected for you. You have to constantly monitor your itineraries and stay on top of things.

Mid-Feb. I bought 4 more (el cheapo, thank God) DL itins for the two of us; within a week the schedules where changed on all 4, and at least one mainline segment on each had been downgraded to a CRJ-200.

Wife & I flew a total of 120K EQM on DL last year and already have booked 78K EQM on DL this year, so we're not talking occasional bad luck. Delta's in-flight service is really good, but their customer service reeks overall.

You also need to ask yourself, "What is Delta?" When you buy a Delta ticket, do you honestly expect to fly on the real Delta Air Lines? At last count Delta was in reality an amalgamation of one mainline company (the "real" Delta) and somewhere around 8 regionals of varying quality. It's not a question of what standards they're held to but of what standards they're capable of meeting. Some are good, some really suck. Combined with their incessant schedule changes, your nice cozy upgradeable seat on 737 could end up on a Freedom Air E-145 or ASA CRJ-200, at the end of which flight you're standing in rain waiting for your gate-checked carryon.

Also check out the link in my signature. It's a lengthy post about a GM who apparently was fingered by a DL agent in MCO when he checked in for on-going segments in his mileage run and interrorated by federal agents for 2 hours until he missed his flight. After the interrogation was over and he was cleared to fly, Delta refused either to rebook his on-going connections or to return him home. He was forced to buy a separate one-way ticket home. Yet another stellar example of Delta customer service.

Delta's OK if you can roll with the punches, but I'd take serious business elsewhere.