Keeping DM after long leave?
 

I was on medical leave for 6 months and did no flying at all. Now I've started back up and will be on my normal pace, but it will be hard to get to DM on miles and/or segments. I'll get there on spending, but the travel part will be hard. I wrote a letter to DL through the website but got no response yet. Here's what I wrote:

Hello,

I’m a Delta Diamond and have been one since the beginning of the Diamond program, before that I was a platinum and I’m a million miler. Here is my question. I was on medical leave from mid-January to mid-July of this year and it will be difficult for me to renew my Diamond status, but I will be “on pace”, i.e. my amount of travel and spending will be the same if not more, I just won’t have enough time. Is there something that can be done? Can there be some sort of challenge, i.e. fly/spend “X” amount by the end of the year to maintain Diamond status? What can you do to help me not lose my status due to my medical leave that prevented me from working and travelling.


Has anyone ever been in this position and been able to get some sort of waiver or challenge to keep DM status?

Randidliyo

Good luck with this -- let us know. I retired at the end of June, will make 2MM later this year and should still qualify for DM for 2018, but from then on, will likely be using my complimentary annual Gold for any benefits.

They will not make an exception. Writing them is a waste of time. You sound quite entitled as you will still make PM and that has quite a few benefits (in their eyes).

You can requalify either by mileage runs or by buying MQMs at year end. Those are the only two ways.

Do you realize its still July? You have plenty of time for mileage runs.

DL has no reason to do this. In fact, a disincentive. OP has plenty of time to earn his status back and if he does not, why would DL give it to him?

Always possible that DL would do some kind of a challenge or that it might offer a cash buy-up in December, but it is in the process of trying to trim the number of high-level elites, not increase them.

I was once cced on an internal delta email chain (still have no idea why) where a diamond member emailed the diamond desk claiming they had eye surgery which prevented them from flying for the year. Here's what the delta team wrote to the person:

"I am truly sorry for the issue with your eye and please to hear you are
doing better. We appreciate the opportunity to further review your
inquiry to extend your Medallion status. In order to do so, we require
a signed statement from the attending physician on letterhead stationery
- not a prescription pad - which specifically states this information.
Accordingly, if you will send us the required documentation as an
attachment to this email , we will further review your request.

All situations are reviewed on a case-by-case basis; however, we are
required to maintain an equitable fairness to all requests received from
our customers. Please understand, although we are sympathetic to all
circumstances, not all requests for a medical exception will be honored.

Mr. XXXXXXX, thank you again for giving us an opportunity to respond to
your concern. We very much appreciate your Million Miler Diamond
Medallion loyalty to Delta and look forward to the privilege of serving
you again soon.

Sincerely,

xxxx
Diamond Desk"

I think it's actually a fair question and request. DL probably won't do anything but it doesn't sound overly entitled to me. BA is even giving people on maternity/paternity leave a break!

Yeah, I'm not entitled, I just like DM and would hate to lose if it there's a way not to. Last year I just made it on segments and was way over on spending. I guess I will just have to spend a year as PM to remind me what DM is worth.

I could definitely get doctors notes. It's been weeks and I haven't heard a response to my inquiry through the website. Maybe there's another place I should send my request??

Truthfully, in all my years of top tier DL elite status (PM or DM since 2000), I have personally never heard of anyone getting status renewal essentially renewed for a medical reason. Although the request is reasonable, I have just never seen anyone post on the board that this has been done successfully.

That said, if I were given this kind of "break", I would not broadcast the fact too loudly.

Such things may be coming.

AS just implemented a status extension for those on parental leave. That may open the door for medical leave and other reasons.

https://blog.alaskaair.com/alaska-ai...n/elite-leave/

Just what we need, more elite inflation! ;)

To the OP: best of luck.

IIRC BA does something similar and I may have seen something about UA starting this.

Of course, LH has people qualify on two year cycles, so there would be less of an issue in that missing six months of flying in two years rather than one would make much less of a difference.

I wonder whether there are any creative status matching possibilities to at least give the OP SkyTeam ElitePlus (rather than just Elite as a one MM) in the interim if there will be a significant period with just FO status.

Good luck to you OP. Please update us if/when you hear back from Delta. I have not heard of recent policy exceptions but maybe it will work out.

If all else fails and you wish to join the ranks of the mileage runners, there are runs that total over 20k MQM's in a single, but long, trip. I did a run earlier this year (partially for the miles, but really because I wanted to ride on the upper deck of a 747 before they're gone). Using GUC's, I did 27k miles in business class on every leg, including 2 legs between Detroit and Tokyo on the upper deck. Crazy, I know but I enjoyed it.

If you are making it on spending no problem just fly to Asia and back once or twice in main cabin and easily fix the mileage issue.

A lot of airlines have started offering (AS and Qantas I believe come to mind) new parents the ability to keep their status, since they inevitably have to cut back on travel/work in the short term. If you had doctor's notes it certainly doesn't hurt to show them why you were unable to maintain a level of travel and why it may compare to other airline policies for similar issues.