SfoDtwFlr

So in order not to be a "high maintenance" passenger, you must not:
1. Have reservations that are complicated, it is only permissible to have simple round trips.
2. Use the upgrade instruments that Delta gives out. If you want to use stated benefits, you should pay more to use them.
3. Use the partnerships that Delta has established.
4. Use SkyMiles in anyway except for simple round trips on Delta metal.
5. Have an itinerary that has timing which meets your needs.
6. Book in a specific fare class that Delta sells. DL will decide what fare class to put you in even if you wanted to pay more for a higher class.
7. Book in different cabins. You will either sit in coach or first / business elite. No mixing.
8. Not change your plans once you have made them (even if you are willing to pay $150 or more to do so).
9. Not fly on days when there are IRROPs.

Getting rid of these "high maintenance" passengers or charging them more for the privilege sounds like a great way to make money. It's a good thing that there are not any other companies that provide the same service that DL does without such restrictions.

Sabai

Lemme guess, you don't use your miles for international award travel with ST partners.

Until this "big, global airline" fixes its IT issues, human intervention is often required for processes that NWA automated years ago, and I'm talking about booking on AF/KL.

God forbid that you want to book award travel on KE, VN, FA, MH, etc.
When that happens, the hapless customer often has to school the clueless agent on what carriers SkyMiles can actually be used.

Your world would seem a small one indeed.

RRDD

You got it. I'm a humble traveller with meager needs. I just want to fly between MSP-MDW-DTW-CVG-PIT. Once there, I want to rent a car and drive for two hours into the corn fields to visit customers.

My miles are used for economy tickets so that my wife can join me on these mundane adventures. We are particularily fond of the Hampton Inn in Ottawa, Illinois. They have free cookies every evening.

Help me understand why I should foot the bill for "high maintenance" customers who need award upgrades when flying Air France between Hamburg and Zurich. Hopefully you will have a good answer by the time I finish my latest foray; MSP-CLE on an RJ with no first class.

NWA/Deltaflygirl

I don't understand why some people think that only 'High maintenance' passengers use the call centers,

MOST of my calls come from regular passengers who want to make bookings from A to B, at a time and price that works for them. As I said, a LOT of people don't want to use the computer, or can't for a variety of reasons - and many of those FF who call in often don't have to pay a DTC.

GRALISTAIR

Mr Reggae ambassador

Dovster

Indeed, if they have anything out of the ordinary they have to use the phone.

If I want to buy an M fare, but be guaranteed that there is Z availability which I will get, that is only possible by phone.

If I want to fly TLV-MXP-ATL (which means getting on an El Al flight if I don't feel like connecting somewhere), I have to do it on the phone.

jiburi

After numerous years of being connected to the professional agents there, I too will miss the SEA agents. I think the move or the closure, was going to happen eventually though as the offices are located right beside SEATAC airport. Am sad to hear they decided to close.

Best wishes for OP and the entire dedicated crew there...

Jiburi

mtkeller

Well, there are two options: you pay for the IT to offer these services online to everyone or you pay for the call centers to offer them to everyone while having only us "high maintenance" travellers using them. Given the deplorable state of DL IT (the AF board recently had a thread trashing the AF site in comparison to good ol' DL.dumb, amusingly enough), I don't anticipate seeing good alternatives for most of the things you deemed "high maintenance" any time soon. It seems even straightforward changes resulting from schedule changes require calling a human to get a reasonable alternative some days…

Deemus7

Sounds like you should think about flying Spirit, where everything is a la carte and you will no longer be forced to pay for such "complex" things...

Honestly, this logic could be extended to an infinite number of businesses where you don't "consume" every part and piece of their operations:

-When you buy gas at the pump, do you ask for a cheaper price because you aren't a "high-maintenance" customer that requires a person to process your transaction?
-When you use a self-checkout lane at the grocery store, do you expect a discount because you are avoiding a real person?
-When you go out to dinner and don't get a bottle of wine, do you ask for a discount because you shouldn't be responsible for upkeep of the restaurant's wine cellar?

When you purchase a ticket, you are agreeing for Delta to get you from point A to point B. Delta is never promising that every cent of your ticket will go towards covering the costs of your simple interactions with them.

Remember too that many of the "high-maintenance" customers that call are charged a direct ticketing fee for the things that can be accomplished online.

RealHJ

Not complex issues, simple bookings like booking, say, KE, MU, CZ, CI, MH, VN, RO, OK, AM and most other SKyTeam airlines flights, even if simple RT.

And why? Because DL has chosen to do the massive IT downgrade to 1980's era technology, vs. allow customers to do that online, as could be easily done until 2009 on nwa.com. Most of us never needed to call NW/DL until 2009. 2009 is when it all changed and there was a good 20~30 years rollback of IT, from NW (2000s era) to DL (1980s era).

Until 2009 I'd only call to use PU503s, not once for anything else, as all else could be done easily and quickly online.
2009, 2010, 2011 each year I've had to waste an average of about 1.5 hours on the phone per reservation, given how excruciatingly long it takes DL to do the simplest things, such as ticket a simple RT reservation or apply PU503, often involving 2, 3, and even 4 escalation paths, and multiple (up to 5) people on the phone at once trying to force their systems to work properly. I mean now sometimes you are forced to spend more time booking a flight than actualy flying it. Some reservations have taken in excess of 5 hours. Average of about 1.5h per. And worst are IRROPs. Try to do it online, but it'll just delete your first flight and expect you to magically transport yourself to ATL (when it is your flight to ATL that is cancelled), and change your other flight, though that you don't want to change; impossible to do that online, can not, have to call. And worst of all, trying to change award tix online has a high chance of voiding/deleting your ticket, with NO notification (online, e-mail, or phone) and no refund of miles or $$, only to potentially find you later trying to check-into a flight that you are not on anymore, and not being able to rebook it as the availability is gone. So really can't do almost anything online, given how most functionality is so very badly broken.

fti

Great rebuttal. Seems like RRDD is "high maintenance" on this forum. Maybe IB should start charging him/her...per post?

DLdweeb

Simple. Because DL markets itself as a big global airline offering, among other things, award upgrades when flying AF between Hamburg and Zurich. Until DL develops a website where these offerings can be completed online, call centers will be necessary.

Congrats, BTW, on never using them.

As others have mentioned, if you want true a la carte pricing, Spirit is ready when you are....

TheMadBrewer

I've seen that clip so many times, but I still get a kick out of it. This wasn't one of the better ones, though. The LA Freeway closure ("Car-mageddon") one was my favorite, but probably just because that was local...

HongKonger

+100 to you and all the others who have responded similarly.

HongKonger

Because every single business in the world has overhead which is not directly related to the services they provide to you but is still required for them to operate their business properly. Whenever you make a purchase from any business you are partially paying for their overhead.

For example, those free cookies you love to eat at the Hampton Inn in Ottawa, Illinois... other customers may not want to eat them, but they have paid for them. I think you should go door to door during your stays at this Hampton Inn offering a few pennies to anyone who didn't eat a free cookie.