A way to get Delta's attention re: award availability?
 

I've read a lot about the disappearance of "low" priced Skymiles awards, and seen many people react by directing their business to other airlines, or threatening to. I wonder if the following might end up being a more effective approach to eating our cake (getting more "low" price awards opened up) and having it, too (i.e., not giving up the good things Delta offers that brought us here in the first place):

Delta may not care whether we can actually convert Skymiles into flights at a good conversion rate. But they absolutely do care how much money they can make by selling Skymiles to merchants who use them as incentives (American Express, for instance). Amex may be a poor example because they may have bought all the Skymiles they'll ever need at a really good price when they bailed DL out a few years back. But what about all the others?

If I'm a merchant looking to buy a boatload of Skymiles, I'm going to try to negotiate the price down from whatever Delta's posted rate is. If Skymiles are in high demand, Delta's going to have the upper hand in that negotiation. But if Skymiles are seen as less-valued by my customers than other airlines' FF miles, I'm going to have a stronger hand, and Delta's revenue from sales of Skymiles is going to suffer.

But I can't just go to Delta and say, "Skymiles suck. Gimme a disount." I need a stronger argument than that. I need to be able to say, "You know, UA and AA sell me miles at $X, but with the way you're restricting low-priced awards, if I invest $X in Skymiles, I'm afraid Skymiles will come to be valued less by my customers. So you need to sell them to me at $X-Y to offset that risk.

"Bull," Delta will say, "Skymiles are Best in Class(R)."

"Really? Well take a look at these head-to-head availability comparisons that have been done by some folks over at flyertalk.com. Goose eggs across the board for Delta. And what about this poll of flyertalkers that names Skymiles as far and away the stingiest program for awards? And what about this large stack of other supporting data I have?"

Then Delta caves and gives the discount. Or maybe not. But either way, if they start getting this kind of pressure on Skymiles pricing from enough of their customers, there will at least be a real reason for Delta to be interested in improving award availability. And surely the number of instances of this sort required to get Delta's attention is far smaller than the number of loyal customers who need to jump ship.

Now, I'm not certain of the best way to get merchants to start making the above arguments in their negotiations with Delta, but surely they would be interested in receiving data that could help them in their negotiations. And surely we could compile that data (in an objective way). Does anyone know the best way to get the data to the merchants?

Any other thoughts as to how to achieve this, or how practical it might be?

You know, I have wondered about the answer to your question many times. I hope you are not taking my following suggestion as being tongue in cheek or humorous, because I am dead serious, and Jeff, I hope you are reading this. Perhaps we could make a simple placard that says , "Jeff Robertson, when are you going to fix the Award Calendar?" Those of us in Atlanta could take turns holding up the placard outside the DL parking lot where he parks. I can assure you, word would get around DL HQ quickly. I have one more question. If we found out his home address, would it be permissible to picket in his neighborhood? I really am not kidding here. Something has to get their attention at DL besides our posts here which they find too easy to ignore. When you interrupt someone's professional and person life, legally, that person tends to take notice.

^ Makes sense to me. Seriously. Concerned DL SM members in ATL should indeed do it.

Just IMO the placard should say: "Jeff Robertson, when are you going to improve the low award availability & fix the Award Calendar?"

As the low award availability is just as much of a problem as the calendar is (which for simple routes is actually, as of late for me at least, accurate).

Maybe the placard holders could be stationed right next to the AMEX card hawkers?

I will hold that one up next week. This week, I am dealing with a more pressing subject...Continental Drift... it needs to be stopped...

I think the most effective way to get Skymiles partners to send a message is to create reduced demand for Skymiles. I'm not crediting any hotels, rental cars, ...etc. to Delta in any event because I feel like I can get more bang for the buck elsewhere. I'm reasonably certain I'm not alone. Perhaps if this was done in an organized and vocal way, it would send a message. Heck, I would be willing to send DL a monthly statement showing the partner activities I had that I didn't send their way.

The Amex hawkers sure have gotten aggressive lately, they can't give those things away.

Probably some sort of paper letter campaign aimed at Amex might work best. I rather doubt Amex would want to have any part of customers kicking up dust in thier comparative clean zone. Their voice will carry far more weight in Atlanta than hundreds of FFs.

I just cancelled my SkyMiles Amex. I told the rep there are too many SkyMiles out there and are pretty worthless and got no argument.

Jim

I posted this in another thread but..
 

I personally know 2 reporters who have latched onto this (not from FT for all those who say it is just disgruntled NW flyer's) from Blogs (numerous) on the ridiculous low award availability to Asia and to a lessor extent Europe for Business class. These folks work for very large, very reputable papers/magazines and are taking the approach that AMEX and DL are making promises that in reality are not true. Yes, you can get a low biz award 1 or 2 days out of a year but that is not how they are selling the miles on the front end. I have been interviewed and I think this will have an impact. One of them has sat down and tried to do exactly what we all talk about: Be flexible and get a ticket in Biz to Hong Kong or Shanghai from ANYWHERE in the US. She was AMAZED at how blatant the lie really is when you try and score one of these and I hope it publishes soon. I have been involved with these things before through Flyertalk and they usually take quite a while to actually go to print but I can't wait.

Edit to add: They also did what many here id which is compare that availability to other programs and it is SHAMFUL. Anyone who thinks this is ok is really sucked into the Delta Borg machine because it is not ok and in every case DL is dead last in the number of bookable, low Business class awards.

You know. Given how much we all fly - our visibility in airports throughout the US could be quite high. Why not carry around that sign. Or better yet, have t-shirts made up (yes, this $$$) and wear them around the airport/on flights. Bound to get some stir and regular PAX discussion.

Did my part in ATL a couple of days ago.
 

Walking down the C concourse and get attacked by one of the AMEX hawkers. The guy says

Him: "you can't walk away from a free ticket can you?"

Me: "Really? cool but I fly for a living so if I get a free ticket it would have to be Business Class"

Him: "No problem! 25k miles will go a long way to the 100k you need to for a biz ticket! (I did not bother telling him Asia was 120k..)

Me: "How can you do this for me?"

Him: "Sign up and you will end up with 25 miles in your account and you can do it yourself!"

Me: "I have been looking for a business class award for about 2 months now and I can;t find anything to Asia"

Him: "Well you do have to be flexible but there are PLENTY (lol) of awards to be had"

Me: " I looked for the entire year and found not one ticket to Hong Kong or anywhere is south Asia. I really do not want the card but you should tell the truth when you are out here selling this "free ticket" to a bunch of people who probably do not know they CAN'T get one"

Him: "That's not true sir, there are awards that are redeemed every day"

Me: "Find me ONE to Hong Kong in Biz and I will sign up now"

Him: "Well I can't do that obviously you need to do it yourself...thanks for your time"

I am pretty sure I got a small round of applause from bystanders as I was walking away.

I tend to agree, the issue I see is Delta has already dropped their price, hence all the promos for double triple miles etc. I think overall they are killing the golden goose it is just a matter of how long it takes for companies to say no thanks we have enough miles to cover us.

I am actually for that. Someone should do a good graphic design for it and upload it to some custom T-shirts company (online site), and provide the way how anyone can select that design and get their own custom T-Shirts. Then everyone who's up for it can get their own t-shirt on their own dime (and IMO the few $$ investment into this -- if enough people do this -- would be well worthwhile).

(Just that I always wear a long-sleeve shirt on top of a t-shirt when travelling... not to get my elbow stuck on a sticky armrest or such... but even I would forego that convenience and take it off when walking at the airport, esp. ATL!)

EVEN BETTER if it's with a custom t-shirt printing company that takes SkyPesos for payment! :D

I've been trying to book any two weeks to BKK and the best I've been able to do is by calling Delta and getting one medium tier + 1 high tier award for a total of 305,000 miles per person. This is after selecting every medium tier calendar date pair for several months only to see no availability. This is over double what the last two business award trips to Asia that Mrs. Outoftown and I got on previous OneWorld (AA) and StarAlliance (US/ANA/SQ) and (US/UA/Air New Zealand) trips. AMEX will lose two more AMEX Skymiles accounts and all my Delta future business if I have to spend 610,000 Skymiles for a business class trip to Asia.

-outoftown