redtailshark

Read "Providing you with the best possible experience is a delicate balance between delivering the absolute minimal level of functionality that will prevent you defecting to AA, UA, CO or US, and strictly limiting the liability of the redeemed SM to ensure progress towards our magesterial commercial goal of 12% margins by 2012."

redtailshark

I agree with this course of action..but we all know what the result will be. Unlike at NW, when pushed, the DL supe is going to tell you that this policy. All of these well-known facts align to provide strong circumstantial evidence that DL is deliberately restricting SM redemptions in a variety of ways.

Frozentech

It might be amusing if someone could come up with an amusing music video, something ala Dave Carroll's "United Breaks Guitars" that describes the ordeal of Delta's "one-way" loyalty program ?

MikeMpls

... or "Ground Stopped at ATL"?

DLdweeb

I assume you regularly scan these posts, so you are no doubt aware of the frustration we have with the award calendar.

Can you please give us an idea of what is in store for the calendar? Do the higherups realize there is a problem, or do they assume everything is fine? Is there a plan to address this issue?

Thanks as always for your contribution to the forum.

bkmn

I would think the bean/peanut counters would be looking at the overutilization of the call centers to book award tickets and see how many $$$$ the award booking process is costing the company.

DiverDave

Actually I will note that the award calendar has seemed more reliable lately in terms of having actual "low" availability on the dates that display low. In fact, I cannot think of a recent (past month) case where that has not happened.

I have observed, however, that I can go forward a month, then click to go back to my original month and sometimes I get more "Low" dates.

I also have encountered the dreaded "there are no flights on this date to your destination" message. That has been largely curable by checking "show me only Delta flights."

David

(edit: I had been checking destinations in the 50 states. Just tried LHR and FRA and dates that showed "Low" for BE came up as 200K and 150K respectively. Maybe they fixed it for domestic and left the international fouled up just to annoy certain FTers. )

ifette

How about just getting award bookings to work at all? Try searching for SFO-ATH. No flights found. Try calling up res. A number of options. Magic.

I can't book award flights on the website at all anymore.

GBadger

I had the same problem with SFO-OSL...

gleff

I just wish Delta would recognize this, and allow 24 hour holds over the phone.

GrizShel

I too, wish Delta would break their silence on this matter which is very important to a lot of frequent flyers. It is now just way too much d*** trouble to book awards with Skymiles and I can have zero confidence now that the value of miles will be retained going forward (since I see about a 50% reduction in their value, for me at least, since early 2009.)

I'm also very disappointed that my Platinum status gets me absolutely nothing in terms of increased award availability.

When you took nwa.com and (sorry, but this is true imo) blew up the excellent NW elite services line with vastly inferior customer service by phone (I had a serious of bad experiences in the last few weeks - there are multiple agents I interacted with who did not know what they were talking about and insisted on enforcing mythical rules at my expense) it made it easy to take the plunge this month and start flying other airlines regularly. So this once exclusive Sky Team flyer is now booking mostly with other airlines. It's gotten so bad that even losing most of my domestic upgrades is not nearly enough to keep me with Deltifed Airlines.

kss5555

The award calendar needs to be fixed now, at least show tell us up front that only high or medium are available, do not say low exists but then give us no options that reflect what the calendar says.

My mom has about 60K delta miles and she does not fly more than maybe twice a year so I am trying to use some of her miles to have her join me in Mrytle Beach for a week in June. This should be rather easy to find low award availability, seeing as DTW is a hub and they offer a non stop flight, and there are probably 5 or so flights out of ATL that would offer 1 stop connections, nope, boy was I wrong. Even though the award calander showed low availability for all dates I was searching for the following routes. FNT or DTW-MYR or ILM. I got nothing but 32.5K or 40K options. However I was able to price together a 2 stop itinerary on the way out and a 1 stop on the way home for 25K that I now have on hold. I searched each leg individually to come up with this per advice from other FT posters. I will most likely not book this and will instead use some of my old united miles for a trip on US air to MYR. While I have wanted to give DL the benefit of the doubt and hope they will actually fix this, but here is an example where booking 1 tix to MYR with pretty much flexible dates by 1 or 2 days each way should be rather easy and of course it is not.

Here is the itinerary I could price out for 25K, no way will I send my mom on this itinerary for what is a 1 hour 45 minute flight non stop from DTW.


Delta 1993
Reservation: Confirmed Detroit-Wayne County, MI (DTW)
McNamara Terminal
Gate: N/A
Scheduled: 3:25pm
28 Jun 2010 Indianapolis, IN (IND)
Gate: N/A
Scheduled: 4:35pm
28 Jun 2010 Coach (N)
Your Seating 125 Days Until Departure

Delta 1564
Reservation: Confirmed Indianapolis, IN (IND)
Gate: N/A
Scheduled: 5:12pm
28 Jun 2010 Atlanta, GA (ATL)
South Terminal
Gate: N/A
Scheduled: 6:46pm
28 Jun 2010 Coach (N)
Your Seating

Delta 308
Reservation: Confirmed Atlanta, GA (ATL)
South Terminal
Gate: N/A
Scheduled: 8:45pm
28 Jun 2010 Myrtle Beach AFB, SC (MYR)
Gate: N/A
Scheduled: 10:00pm
28 Jun 2010 Coach (N)
Your Seating

Other Flight in this Reservation:
Close Open
Selected Itinerary Information: Carrier
Flight Number Departs Arrives Cabin & Class Upgrade Status


Delta 311
Reservation: Confirmed Myrtle Beach AFB, SC (MYR)
Gate: N/A
Scheduled: 6:00am
3 Jul 2010 Atlanta, GA (ATL)
South Terminal
Gate: N/A
Scheduled: 7:20am
3 Jul 2010 Coach (N)
Your Seating 130 Days Until Departure

Delta 1475
Reservation: Confirmed Atlanta, GA (ATL)
South Terminal
Gate: N/A
Scheduled: 10:55am
3 Jul 2010 Detroit-Wayne County, MI (DTW)
McNamara Terminal
Gate: N/A
Scheduled: 1:00pm
3 Jul 2010 Coach (N)
Your Seating

fti

As I have said before, DL will never "break its silence" about the online award booking engine. It would be too much of a liability to them to admit it is dysfunctional.

Plus, the way it is set up now, it drains hundreds of thousands more miles from innocent passengers who just pay the inflated mileage levels booking online.

zedthedeadpoet

I tried to book an award ticket last night with the calendar and it didn't work. ATL-LAS - I found plenty of outbound flights, but dl.com showed ZERO, NONE, NADA for the return. Not even a 300,000 mile ticket - just said nothing available. 15 minutes, 80k miles and $10 later on the phone, I had a ticket no problem....

DLdweeb

And therein lies part of the answer. They got you to part with $10 for 15 minutes of agent time. Assuming they pay the TA $20 an hour (a wild a$$ guess), they made $5 on your transaction compared to zippo using the website.