I was unsure if a member of Delta’s executive offices read this forum, but if someone did, I wanted to pass on a message. I certainly do miss flying you guys. I realize that the majority of the threads in the forum are negative. Hell, even I had a few in the past…lol.

Last year my travel changed with Delta not flying to any of the Texas cities I was now required to travel to for business, with the exception of San Antonio. So, I changed over to Continental in May 2010 and made Platinum with 90 segments in 4 months. My upgrade percentage has been good on available flights, running about 95%. I was a DL or NW platinum for a number of years and then charter Diamond.

I am laughing here as I am unsure of my thread’s purpose, other than to let the DL executives know (if they visit the forum) that I miss you guys!!!

A few of my thoughts are . . .

1) I'm glad to hear an occasional good thought, too! I'm fairly happy with Delta. Every now n then, something totally stupid happens, that prompts a call, but in general, I feel like I'm treated ok as a "T class" Platinum - hopefully Diamond this year, due to rollover.

2) I don't know the first thing about status matching, but, couldn't you have attempted a status match rather than doing it the hard way?

3) Does CO fly to THAT many TX cities that you need to fly to that DL doesn't?

4) I expect a few PM's and lower who will thank you for giving them your F seats!

I'll throw my 2 cents in... I'm just starting out a high-travel career (worked at a Fortune 500 with a super-low-overhead philosophy; became a WebEx frequent flier...) and "shopped around" a bit over the last year, trying out different airlines to see what the service level was and comparing the possibilities.

Hand down, Delta takes care of me. I don't even have status (yet) and whenever I ask for anything reasonable, I get it. Waived rebooking fees to jump on an earlier flight? No problem. Free breakfast when my 7am is delayed to 7:30am? Check. There were times on other airlines I was delayed 4-5hours for a TATL and got nothing except a cup of water. FAs that make sure I make my connections even when my flight is late (with ample "they won't hold the plane just for you, so run!" warning).

Plus, unlike other airlines (including one that claims to be so much frendlier because they are employee owned...) I believe that Delta's employees genuine care about my flying experiance and will do whatever is necessary for me to have a positive Delta experiance.

Now, the next time it takes an hour to de-ice a plane, I might not be so chipper, but... it could be worse.

Your upgrade % is impressive, can you share with us your destinations? Out of LAX, I am not close to than % on either DL nor CO.

I started flying CO because of the disappointing DM benefits. I like DL for DOM but IME CO has better food in F and I especially like their INT upgrade system.

I see you're STL-based two days per week. This station's staff definitely fit the profile described above. ^

I said "available flights" as most my CO flights are on a CRJ. The cities I now fly into are:

MAF - Midland/Odessa
SAT - San Antonio
DRT - Del Rio
CRP - Corpus
BPT - Beaumont
TYR - Tyler
ACT - Waco
IAH - Houston

DL has pulled out of just about everything in TX, I believe they only do DFW, IAH, AUS, SAT, and ELP. with ELP you must really want to fly DL since it is only a few flights a day. They use to do all of TX when they had the DFW hub.

Of those, DL only serves IAH and SAT...and I suppose ACT via Ft. Hood.

They also fly to DAL (Love Field). I use that to travel around TX on SWA

This thread is kind of like me complaining that CO doesn't offer flights into DLH, GFK, FAR, RST, and FSD.

Regional flights to pretty small places are generally best served (or only served) by the airlines with the closest geographical hubs.