redtailshark

I want to know how other former WP members think about the quality of SM now that we've been in the system for a while and have had a chance to use, or be used by, it.

I don't contest that there are some (a few?) improvements to hard product, mainly in domestic Y. Although I don't think BE is much better, if at all, than WBC.

But, let's focus on the program, SM vs WP.

When CO announced they were headed to Star, I was at IAH during an ANC MR. I thought that I might be seeing a lot less of CO as a result of their switch. Of course, things change radically and when we were absorbed by the Borg, I thought it might take some acclimation but I'd see what happened.

I'd heard that SM was more difficult to use.

But I really didn't expect it to be so dreadful and deceptive. I guess I'd expected a quantum degradation in my CS and FFP experience, 15, 25%, something conceivable. But what's happened is almost incredible. SM is worse than valueless, it's often a disincetive to use DL. And somehow intellignt DL loyalists seem acclimated, or resigned, to this utterly awful SM service and want to excuse the management for it. It's even worse than US DM which for a long time I believed to be the pits.

The WP program was a major positive factor incentivizing my bookings on NW. I literally never flew another airline unless there was a hard constraint, like no service to the destination concerned.

With DL, I actively avoid booking them unless I have really no choice, or the only other option is to fly AA with whom I have no status at all. My impending DL MM status has no value to me. I don't care about the PMUs, or the, or anything DL SM offers, because it's all aggravation and frustration to redeem. PM is worthless, SMS is frustrating and a waste of time.

SM actively diminishes my quality of life, but WP and - to a lesser but still notable extent - OP, have enhanced it.

Stripe

I'd hesitate to characterize any FF program as "life enhancing" or "life diminishing". You shouldn't let an airline get that under your skin.

But to your point... SkyMiles itself is about what I expected, which was a major step backwards from what WP offered. A year ago we had a pretty good idea what was going to get tossed and that the CO relationship would go away. The latter has been a huge loss in terms of flight alternatives, club locations, etc especially for those of us in Texas.

What I didn't anticipate was the deterioration of phone service for top tier elites, the extreme difficulty of award redemption, the difficulty of booking even revenue flights (outside of the very restricted routings now offered), and just how bad delta.com and its mobile sibling would be. DL is violating a cardinal rule: don't make it difficult for your customers to do business with you.

I agree the hard product is better in some small ways but not so much that it will motivate a decision to fly DL over another carrier. Most airlines are going to lie-flats in J, and on most DL planes there are no ideal seats. Bulkheads in F on the DL 757s and 737s have laughably tight legroom. Even row 5 in coach on the legacy NW planes is now out of bounds. The food in domestic F is worse.

Although I got a status match to CO I have flown only DL so far this year, but they were all T fares. Also, because my travel will probably be down it will be hard to maintain much status with CO.

OldRoyal

Agreed. Since about 2003, Delta has devalued its miles a number of times, and has even lied to us previously loyal longtime customers about the program ("your old miles will always be redeemable under the old award schedule." Not so.) I'm sure you also miss the NW fee policies on last-minute FF ticket redemptions, award ticket changes and mileage redeposts.

The other two things that have really torqued me have been:

1) WORLD CLUBS, R.I.P. -- the degradation of the old WC's down to DL Crown Room level -- cheaper food, liquor, plastic plates, lack of self-service bars, etc.

2) DELTA'S POOR WEBSITE -- Delta's refusal to consider using NWA's booking engine in favor of the lousy Delta product. DL's web site (and other electronic offerings) is the worst of all major carriers, IMHO. Five years after its rollout, the search engine for awards STILL gives inaccurate info more than 50% of the time (customers have been screaming to get it fixed for only about 4.9 of those five years!), DL's "upgrade" of its kiosk software two years ago made the kiosk slower and added additional screens. Great upgrade. Delta's biggest IT innovation in the last 10 years has been adding advertising to its boarding passes.

Delta promised us best-in-class but delivered cheapest-in-class.

mnredfox

You know if they would fix the award calendar/website and open up international J, I think my opinion would be a lot better and I'd start to forget the change of:

125% to 100%
Loss of NW PE Companion UG
Loss of NW Award UG's (esp at BF for PE's)
Loss of 1K UG Gaurantee
Loss of award waivers
Award redemption, change, partner, origination fees
Loss of hot food
Good food in WC's

Old Bailey

I have always enjoyed flying whether it was business or personal. There was rarely something that irritated me. I read Forums like this and have rarely posted any comments because my flying experiences were predominantly positive for many many years. So now I'm Diamond, I'm asked to book flights on a poorly functioning web site, my lounge visits are downgraded, I have to split my wife's ticket from mine when we fly for pleasure, I can't book a bulk head seat anymore and here I am posting my disappointment on a forum. In a few short months my enjoyment of air travel has been dramatically diminished. I don't feel like a valued customer. Just generally disillusioned and dissatisfied since the merger. So what I guess, no one that can do anything about it cares.

itsaboutthejourney

So far, the great inflight and better boarding Dulta offers doesn't make up for the crappy loyalty program and circa 1997 technology. Fingers crossed something will change and soon.

GUWonder

No worse than I had expected DL SkyMiles to become. DL SkyMiles is as awful now as I had expected it to become

pbarnette

There are a lot of pointless, useless threads on FT. This is BY FAR the most pointless and useless thread I have ever seen. We GET IT! You don't like DL.

MOVE ON, ALREADY

Everyone will be much happier when people stop posting the same stupid complaints over and over and over and over. You will be happier because you realize that there are more important things in life. Those that are happy with DL will enjoy it because threads like these will not clutter up the screen and the stupid complaints seen here do not continually pop up in every single thread, including those that have nothing to do with SM. DL management will be happier because they may get some useful information, rather than the inane whining of a handul of people that simply choose to be miserable. FT management will be happy because they can save on bandwith. Those that are unhappy with DL, but simply want to get some information, rather than joining in a collective complaint session will be happy because they can get that information.

Seriously, GET A LIFE! Being miserable is a choice. Complaining is a choice. Choose to stop whining. Choose to make everyone happy.

Carolinian

Hey, we get it that your drink the management koolaid, but don't gripe just because some of us are smart enough not to!

Having already bolted DL once back in the Rob Borden days, I did expect DL to be a big downgrade from WP, but is a much bigger downgrade than I ever imagined. Jeff Robertson has made SM a bigger joke than Borden ever did. The 3-tier awards chart has made redemption absurd and made SM the Zimbabwe dollars of the sky.

I will be glad when I can findly find some productive way to dispose of my remaining SkyPiles and be done forever with this worthless program. I do like DL's gateways better than the competitions and other things about their hard product, but it is the ff program that is the real incentive or disincentive to fly a particular airline. Even after I switched from DL to NW over Borden's shananigans, DL was still my second choice airline. What Robertson has done with his SM changes is to make it my last choice airline, only if there is no other reasonable way to get where I am going.

And it is not just us business travelers who are picking up on how lousy DL is these days on its ff program. The discussion on a leisure oriented BBS I participate in shows me that leisure travellers are getting a belly full of DL's crap too.

MikeMpls

Who forced you to read the thread? If you don't like it, you're the one who needs to move on & find some other thread that you enjoy reading.

GUWonder

It seems like someone is a little unhappy and then some. No one is forcing anyone to open and read this thread.

The last paragraph in the above quoted post is so very ironic given the rest of the content of the post. So much for not practicing what is preached.

KLC

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...will-stop.html

MikeMpls

Dick Ginkowski's response in said thread

If you don't like a thread, find something else to read.

socrates

SM to me is as expected (unfortunately)...what I do miss though is the touch points that NWA excelled at...I had my first "uh oh" moment when I learned DL didn't even have a CRM system, how can you provide best in class customer service when you dont know S**T about your customers? I'm still holding out hope that Theresa can pull off a miracle and that Jeff and overthrow a bean counter or two (not likely now that Ed is on the board) but in the mean time the folks over at CO are taking good care of me too

fttc

I see posts in these threads not intended for people who already made their minds. Rather they are targeting the occasional visitors to this forum or people who google for this type of information, to try to make them think and make up their own minds.

Thus this forum should not be exclusive to either the anti-DL or for-DL crowds.