mike101

+1 This is exactly the same way I feel. As a former NWA Elite, and a current AA Elite knowing what it's like out there I just feel absolutely disgusted with the way SkyMiles is run. I wish a new set of managers would take over the program and steer it in a more honest and transparent direction.

PepeBorja

I am also a former NWA flier and do find the complaints about SM are becoming too much, too frequent

I use miles mostly for shopping and occasional trips to ORLANDO.

Seems most of the complaints come from international flights. The only two I checked where for domestic and I got far better deals with miles than with money.

Examples:

2/21-2/25 MSP-CLT $1150 or 25,000 miles in Coach, M fare
4/18-4/25 MSP-MCO $1100 or 42,500 miles in First Class, (40,000 in Coach, odd isn't it?)

To me those are great deals since I value each mile at 1 cent. Clearly the miles make a better deal for both trips. The whole family in FC to Orlando? ^

It's time to move on.

mike101

Yes it's time to move on, but it will take some others time. Some people spent years investing on NWA and need time to get on their feet and find another airline, start from the beginning and re-learn everything. What's sad is I believe many of these people would have given SkyMiles a chance but the program did everything it could to drive their loyal customers away. The broken website for one is substandard, and an obvious shenanigan.. does it take this long to fix something? Perhaps instead of spending on all these 'Best in Class' marketing ads they could hire a simple website/program analyst to fix the award search engine. Wait a minute, there already was a working one, but they chose to take it down (NWA.com).. this is why so many people are losing trust with the SM program.

BF263533

The one positive is that I got to the benefit of my 42,000 orphaned NW miles.

The decline for me is less Gold upgrades.

No Continental Air as a partner, so less options if you want to travel on a partner, which mean you have lost this option for award travel, especially for connecting to an international gateway.

Another decline is the loss of NW low level international award availability.

I wish my Delta never bought that darn Northwest because SM was better when it had the NW and CO partners.

ONTRandy

+1 Being able to upgrade my wife and take the family someplace in C is the payback to them for having to put up with me gone all the time. I tend to place the highest value on those things as well. Loss of the companion upgrade, lack of award inventory+lack of competative SWU motivated me to take my business elsewhere.

DL has a great inflight product. Unfortunately, they don't have a best in class FFP driving business to a best in class inflight product.

Carolinian

Please take off those rose colored DL glasses and have a real look at what a mess Jeff Robertson has made of SM. If there is anyone who has ruined anything, it is Jeff Robertson ruining SM.

Carolinian

When an airline devalues what you have already earned with them, it is the moral equivalent of stealing, and that is what DL did with our NW miles. Indeed, it would be the same with DL miles already earned. Personally when I compare what a current Zimbabwe-style SM will get in the way of award tickets (and yes I am one of those people who are not so provincial as to only look at domestic tickets) to what they used to get either as WP miles or even as old SM before the deliberate devaluation by that pirate Robertson, I have a loss of cash equivalent well into four figures. Is it ever possible to trust a company which has knifed you in the back that way again?

I was a longtime GM on DL in the pre-Borden days, and the DL I knew then was a decent airline with a decent ff program. It is not now. Nor is it a program I would ever trust again. DL claimed they learned their lesson from the Borden fiasco and rescinded all of his changes. Then they brought in Robertson, who bided his time, then socked SM members with an even worse set of changes. What that tells me is that DL's corporate culture is as devious conmen waiting to pounce on the poor suckers who keep flying them.

SM is not now an incentive program to fly DL. It is an incentive to fly anyone but DL.

GUWonder

I find the complaints about DL SkyMiles are too little, too infrequent.

If the complaints about DL SkyMiles were much more and/or more frequent, perhaps DL management would get the message and undo their customer-unfriendly changes that have devalued the DL/NW miles in customer accounts.

kb1992

Absolutely agreed.

What can I do with my 200,000 WP miles (now SM miles)?

Used to be 120,000 miles for a biz class ticket to Asia. Now DL wants more than that for a coach class ticket.

It is equivalent of stealing.

I am surprised that not more people are complaining or even bring the issue to the court.

When DL is advertising 120K miles for saver award but then eliminates all of them so you can't even find one in 330 days, then it is deceptive practice to rob the customers in a very sneaky way.

KLC

Provincial? Wow!

Did you really mean to marginalize a number of your fellow FTers who might be a very valuable resource in the campaign to improve Skymiles??

I know this isn't the thread where we proposed dropping derogatory references to other posters, but the question remains the same.

GUWonder

I don't see that happening. DL customers recognizing that DL management has marginalized them by wiping out much of the value in the miles accumulated in their accounts aren't going to surrender the pursuit of self-interest on the basis of any post on FT regardless of whatever posturing may be introduced.

Provincial would seem to be used appropriately by Carolinian given the nature of segmenting award ticket redemptions. Domestic-only redemptions is more provincial than international-only redemptions.

What's wrong with the application of "provincial" anyway? I don't find anything derogatory about being rooted in a limited geographic domain. Many people think the application of "cosmopolitan" is derogatory.

Familiar with the phrase, "for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so"?

There is something rotten in the kingdom of DL SkyMiles, and -- like they say with a fish -- the rot begins from the head: DL management.

BearX220

Me too. I'm really bemused by the impulse to defend SM and excommunicate its critics -- don't you guys want more?

SkyMiles is like North Korea, and Jeff is Kim Jong Il. He has his admirers inside the bubble, who think he invented the airplane and stuff, but they may charitably be said to suffer from a lack of information. Thank you, dear leader, for those glorious 350,000-mile international awards; they are truly a bargain. And this tree-bark broth is most delicious; I must have the recipe.

jaimemayo

Because I have been working so much lately I haven't had time to plan trips much less than even think about pricing any. Reality hit last night. I am going to HKG in June. Last year I did this on an M fare for $3100 and used a PMU to upgrade to business class. In December I got an M fare for $2800 to BKK and used another PMU. I travel on my own dime so although the tix were expensive, I still thought the prices weren't out of line for biz class (plus the 50% extra mileage). About last night.......I priced MKE-HKG and the M fare was a whopping $5300! There's no way I can afford that. I will probably be stuck in some God-awful 747. Part of the problem is MKE. If you want to fly internationally, DL is really about it. CO, AA and UA all fly jungle jets to places like IAD, EWI, ORD (which I really hate) in order to connect. YX (now I guess it's Republic Airlines) is a big player but there is nothing international. Same with WN. So really, what's left? Well, there's US but I have heard such horrible things about them. I am starting to look at Cathay Pacific. I do have to get to LAX first but my hunch is their economy-plus is way better than DL Y. Any suggestions? I have about 450,000 miles. I never thought I'd say this but I just might burn them this year and cut all ties to DL. Again, trouble is that DL is the major player (internationally) in MKE and there aren't too many other choices.

BearX220

How do you figure DL is "really about it" for international service out of MKE? DL doesn't have international flights from MKE; they offer hops to their hubs like all the others. Maybe on mainline metal instead of Barbie jets, but IMO that's not enough of a factor when you're looking at the insane price premium you're looking at to fly DL.

Forget DL for sure, and sure, look at Cathay Pacific, but out of Toronto or Vancouver, not LAX. You've got Air Canada flying MKE-YYZ; there's an easy connection to CX.

I just ran a dummy booking YYZ-HKG on the CX website for June 10-20, and it's CAD$1578 in economy. YVR-HKG is CAD$1278. Business class is probably out of the question for you at CAD$7600 or so, but CX isn't bad in economy (they don't have premium economy though) and it's a bargain compared to those DL M fares.

PVGMSP

Or, just drive down to ORD and take UA's nonstop to HKG on 747, on which F/C class seats are in mint condition and as good as, if not better, than DL's C, or in E+, which is still better than DL's Y.