I also wish the moderators would -- once and for all -- merge the two concurrent threads discussing the exact same subject.

An Open Letter To SkyMilesInsider
 

Michelle,

Thanks for taking the time to reply, but please take a few moments to have your leadership consider the following:

1) The "glitch" was actually communicated as policy from Delta Employees several times in email, and in phone calls placed earlier this year. (330 days into the year where the glitch had seemingly become policy and was communicated that way from Delta employees, even those I spoke to on the phone this summer when I hit Platinum).

2) Many customers such as myself made purchase decisions with Delta based on the expectation of this because of the policy. To me the primary advantage after upgrades of being an elite Flyer on any airline is service recovery. I will be the first one to say I am grateful for efforts many employees made on my behalf this year in several bad weather/delayed flight situations. This is one of those situations.

3) My suggestion to your leadership, split the difference in miles for impacted customers who take the time to contact you. I am sure thousands of people will never miss this offer because they never knew about it. Give the Platinum’s 10K miles each (Half of the 20K option of one choice), Give the Diamonds 25K each (one of the two choices for 2010) in the form of adjustments. Delta satisfies a vocal group of unhappy campers, and does not have to change and give the offer to thousands who will never miss the offer.

Please consider this proposal. I know a few of my co-flyers here may not be fully happy with this, but a compromise seems in order. After reading two threads for several days and having just made Diamond 4 days ago, and a million miler the week before, it has seriously tainted what should be a time to celebrate the loyalty between a company and a customer.

Thanks for your time, I look forward to your response

...the glitch.

This is the key point. It's not enough to admit fault and say sorry. People made purchase decisions based on an outcome they assumed would happen...which turned out to be wrong due to a Delta "glitch".

(I don't agree with the compromise....but that's a secondary issue.)

Michelle,

Thank you for your post.

I have to point out, however, that it had been well discussed here on FT all year about the ability to choose Choice Benefits for 2010 and 2011. Since DELTA does have a presence in this forum, DELTA was no doubt aware of the ability to choose these benefits for well over 330 days, which led most of us here to believe that this was actually DELTA's policy.

When many of us (the first one's at least) emailed customer service about not being able to choose Choice Benefits for 2010, the Medallion Desk first responded that DELTA's policy was somewhat confusing and we essentially did not understand it. A second round of emails for many of us resulted in the response that people could only choose 2011 benefits and no one was able to choose 2010 benefits (as if we did not know what we were talking about). Then, and only then, does DELTA say that there was a "glitch" which "was discovered that allowed some Medallion Member to select benefits that they were not entitled to." In fact ALL Medallion Members were able to choose benefits for 2010 and 2011, not just some, and lets be honest, a "glitch" is a temporary malfunction, not a 330+ day practice.

Upsetting as this change in policy is (you can say what you want, but a 330+ day practice is not a glitch, its a policy), more upsetting for me personally is the attitude originally taken by the DELTA Customer Service that we were ignorant of the policy, and then that no one was able to choose both 2010 and 2011 Choice Benefits. The latter was actually a lie, as those of us in this forum were keenly aware of the contrary.

I too believe that we should be awarded Choice Benefits for 2010. My contention is that a known, so-called glitch is not kept in place for over 330+ days without it logically being considered a policy. Furthermore, DELTA's original lack of transparency in this matter with outright untruths being communicated by the Medallion Desk to many of us, cries out for a customer service remedy.

I am about to travel to visit family for the Christmas Holidays. However, upon my return, I will be writing Richard Anderson on this matter so that he is aware of how poorly the Medallion Desk handled this situation, including communicating untruths (lies) to customers until an "official" DELTA response. For me, the latter is unconscionable.

If you wish to communicate with me via private message, please feel free to do so.

Sincerely yours,
Domcharles

I encourage everyone to do the same!

Michelle, Call me skeptical but 'the glitch in the system' explanation doesn't seem to hold. Let's start with a definition - glitch: def. a minor problem that causes a temporary setback . Essentially a glitch is a short-lived fault in a system, clearly this wasn't the case with Choice Benefits selection issue, it is(was) neither minor nor temporary. Delta's system is audited by both internal and external auditors which makes it difficult to fathom that it would have taken 11.5 months to discover that the system wasn't operating as intended.

But I digress, I don't think most members who are voicing their concerns here or directly to Delta are looking so much for an explanation but more for a fair solution. The facts are, and please correct me if I'm wrong, members who qualified for PM or DM prior to December 10, 2010 were able to select CBs for both 2010 and 2011. Some members specifically chose to pursue PM or DM status due to this incentive but were left short after missing an arbitrary cut-off date that was never communicated to members. We acknowledge that it is within Delta's rights and indeed within the overall rules of the SkyMiles program to not grant post 12/10 PMs and DMs the same benefits awarded to pre 12/10ers. What we are appealing to at this point is your sense of fairness for a cohort of some of your most loyal customers.

The sooner we can reach a satisfactory resolution the sooner we can end this matter and have Delta representatives focusing on the more pressing issues affecting travelers as a result of inclement weather! ^

Does Richard have an email address that you guys can share?

I plan to send my letter registered mail.

I also just casually mentioned this issue to my close friend who works for a U. S. Senator. While DELTA's stance is certainly not illegal, he suggested I write my congressional delegation, for this is yet another clear indication of the Aviation Industry's (his quote) "lack of transparency that leads to deception by changing practice without communicating the changes and when they are discovered, they initially respond with lies."

I was never in favor of the 3-hour rule and wrote to my congressional delegation opposing the bill. But given the way that I have been treated by DELTA with my original responses from the Medallion Desk containing outright untruths that no one had been able to choose 2010 and 2011 Choice Benefits (when people were), in addition to their 330+ day "glitch story" has tarnished my opinion of DELTA. DELTA has now undistinguished themselves as being just as bad as every other airline and their practices lack integrity and cannot be trusted.

If DELTA does not step up to offer a remedy with integrity, I do plan to communicate this to my congressional delegation and encourage a greater oversight of the aviation industry. I suggest people consider doing the same.

Found these emails on the interweb I might just email all of them

Primary contact
Toby Broberg
Director, Customer Care
(404) 773-0305
[email protected]
Secondary contact (*)
Heidi Gould
Manager, Customer Care
(404) 773-0305
[email protected]
Allison Ausband
Vice President, reservations sales and customer care
(404) 715-2600
[email protected]
Chief executive (*)
Richard Anderson
Chief executive officer
(404) 715-2600
[email protected]

OMG seriously, you are going to write your Congressman to complain because you didn't get a 200 voucher or 20,000 miles? SMH, I think there are more important things to ask the Congress to deal with like the economy, ending 2 wars, figuring out why DL serves fake cheese in the Sky Clubs.

I am sure this will all work out and they will make it right, they always do in the end.

Michelle, thanks for participating in the discussion! Unfortunately, this issue leaves me pretty seriously in the hole from a cost/benefit perspective. As chronicled here, I made the decision to go for Diamond status by booking an additional round trip (in the process committing to an additional 50k of flying next year to maintain my status) based on the observed behavior of the Choice Benefits system all year long. Had I known Delta was going to change this behavior, I would have redeemed miles for that ticket instead.

It certainly made sense to me intuitively I'd receive these benefits - as precedent, note that when I made Platinum a year ago late in the 2009 program year, I received a full set of 6 2009 SWU instruments immediately as was then the custom even though there was only one more month left in the year. It made sense to me that the direct replacement for SWUs would behave similarly.

One alternative request that would make things right for me, if you're unwilling to honor the 2010 Choice Benefits selection, would be if I could decline my Diamond status and roll over the balance of my MQM above the 75k Platinum threshold for the remainder of this year to 2011. I'd like to see that offered as an option - as documented by a detailed cost/benefit analysis in the thread I linked above, the benefits I receive under the new rules as Diamond are worth less to me than the rollover MQM I would otherwise have received as Platinum. Michelle/SMI, is it possible for this option to be available upon request for those of us who would prefer it? (Probably worth noting: I haven't redeemed my 2011 choices yet, so I'm not trying to pull any shenanigans from that perspective :))

I'm fine with this change being the new policy going forward in 2011 with proper and clear documentation on Delta.com. Unfortunately, for 2010, being affected by this change with only 20 days left in the calendar year really comes across as a huge slap in the face to those of us who have increased our commitment to flying Delta this year - and being coincident with the revelations about upcoming changes to the program from the investor's meeting, it couldn't be coming at a worse time. I'm surprised Delta is taking such a hard line approach rather than making this right.

+1 - we're far more likely to get traction with Delta on this issue if we stay clearly focused on the core issues and the remedies we want. I've had a pretty emotional reaction to this, too - but from watching things go down in irops situations at the airport, clearly stating your case and the remedies you want tends to get the best results. The people who "are never going to fly this airline again" seem to be immediately treated as if that was already the case :)

I'm not sure this will all work out in the end, though. They're taking an uncharacteristically hardline approach here, and I'm concerned it's indicative of a broader attitude shift. This isn't the same open and communicative Delta that it sounded like was on display at the ATL DO, and that's unfortunate.

-1

The economy and wars and fake cheese are irrelevant to this thread, as is your post. This is a frequent flier board, the purpose of which is to discuss frequent flier issues, not the economy and wars and fake cheese (though those topics do seem to be introduced here occasionally; go hang out on Omni for lots of these).

Changing the rules of a frequent flier program after the fact is highly, highly, highly relevant, and writing to one's congressional delegation to express dissatisfaction with a large, global corporation's shabby business practices is completely appropriate, irrespective of whether or not you feel there are more important matters on this earth.

Try and remember: This board is called FlyerTalk, not "EconomyTalk" or "TwoWarsTalk" or anything else. Find or start your own board if you want to chat about those subjects.

In the meantime, frequent fliers will talk about Delta here. I'm grateful for such a conduit for sharing information that is important to me.

If we all flood each of these people with polite but insistent messages they might just begin to think we care. After all we're mostly Diamonds, partly Platinums. We should count with them. I will.

glitch!?? i really can't believe that's the official stance. This "glitch" has been going on for wayyyyyyyy too long, and has been discussed a million times on this forum - nobody from delta knew about until dec 11th!?????? wow. What are you people doing over there to not know you were giving away so many miles or vouchers or whatever else for months and months by mistake? HORRIBLE way to treat customers, especially the best customers you have. And so close to the end of the year, i can't understand why not just wait until jan 1 and make an official announcement on he change of policy for next year