mikey1003

None of the ads or flyers said subject to change....

rrgg

If you're one of these people and visit the Delta website today, it will read:
SkyMiles Mileage Expiration 31 Dec 2007

What you're saying is that they will change the rule on the last day of the year, and the website will suddenly read "31 Dec 2006" (assuming the website is up-to-date). That has to be a mistake in the announcement??!

sxf24

Yes they did.

sushibear

I agree. I think a number of those posting either don't have elderly parents who may have flown a lot in years past or parents of children under five who might have the potentail to be some of an airlines best flyers in years to come. My mother is a prime example of the former. She is eighty years old and crushed every bone in her ankle after falling two weeks ago. She is also the primary caretaker of my father who is an invalid. She has over 200K miles, but I can tell you the last thing on her mind will be keeping her SkyMiles account current for the next several years. She has been using her DL Amex card for all purchases for the last several years dreaming that she would one day be able to take a special trip with one of her children. She didn't renew the card this year because she realized she doesn't need to accrue more miles. However, she would like to keep the ones she has. A good number of her miles came from DL flights over the past five years. If miles were easier to cash in, DL's latest enhancement would be one thing. I am generally one who has good luck cashing in miles because I can be flexible and only use miles for leisure travel. But even given three years, I'm not sure I am flexible enough to use that many miles. If DL is going to make decisions like this, and I'm not saying they shouldn't, I think they need to offer greater award availability and put a temporary hold on selling billions of miles to other companies to use for promotional purposes. This sounds like SGB to me, and we all no how well that philosophy served DL.

soitgoes

Maybe it's a mistake in the announcement, but it's listed that way at least twice on the website:
http://www.delta.com/skymiles/about_...ates/index.jsp
http://www.delta.com/skymiles/about_...jsp#expiration

While Delta may have the right to do so, it seems problematic to tell members one expiration date on their Skymiles account page and then change it retroactively on December 31, 2006. A better thing to do would be to keep all the expiration dates as they are now and from this point forward apply the change. (Example: My expiration date is showing 12/31/09 right now. Assuming no future activity, changing it on 12/31/06 to show an expiration date of 12/31/08 seems sort of questionable.)

While I agree that most FTers won't be affected by the change, it does mean I need to keep an eye on some less frequent flyer family members' accounts a little more carefully to avoid expiration. The change is also potentially problematic if this is a sign of an ever-shrinking mile validity period or perhaps even the implementation of an expiration policy for each mile (so that the whole account doesn't get extended with activity). That would be a change that most FTers would be quite upset about, I think.

upgrader

I believe the "retroactively" description would only be apt were it to be applied AFTER December 31, 2006. Or is there something about the English language I am missing?

soitgoes

Let's say the most recent activity in a Delta Skymiles account is sometime in 2004. As soon as that activity posted to the account, the expiration date in the account was shown as "December 31, 2007." That expiration date would still shown in the account now. But then, instead of expiration on December 31, 2007, the miles would, according to these Delta pages, expire a year earlier than was listed in the account.

That's what I mean by retroactively--it's retroactive in the sense that it would seem that the policy changes existing listed expiration dates.

TTT

IOW, people who have not participated in qualifying activity in the last 2 years are not being "grandfathered" into the new, shorter, qualifying period. I was with them until this point, and hope that they will reconsider this change. While they have every right to do so, I think it would only be fair to allow those people who have Dec 31 2007 expiration dates to "keep" them, if you will.

jimrpa

I just don't get it. People can't:
- Buy/donate a magazine subscription
- Buy flowers for an SO (or even themselves!)
- Rent a car
- Stay at a hotel
- Get a SkyMiles credit card from American Express
- Buy stuff from the Delta SkyMiles Marketplace
- Eat dinner out
- Buy some SkyMiles as a gift
- Or, goodness forbid, GET ON AN AIRPLANE and GO someplace
just ONCE every two years, and they're upset about their SkyMiles possibly expiring?

With no disrespect to some of the situations described, here are some simple solutions:
Elderly parents who suddenly can't use their SkyMiles for a while: Take them to dinner and give the restaurant their SkyMiles number. Order some flowers for them and give them their SkyMiles number. BUY them some SkyMiles as a gift and give them to them. You only have to do this once every two years. Goodness, when my parents were alive I took them out to dinner more often than once every two years!
Parents who can't travel because of children: Get a babysitter and go out once every two years. Buy SkyMiles and gift them to each other (assuming both parents here). Buy mom flowers. Buy dad flowers. Buy flowers for the nice people at the pediatricians office! Donate a magazine subscription to a local charity.

robbert

My Continental account has had 1000 miles for over 8 years with no activity. I've written them several times to close the account but it's still active and accessible on the web. So even with the 18 months possibility, they just keep it going.

shadesofgrey1x

Yes, but you have offered no alternative to the people who are just plain lazy and want to whine and do nothing. Maybe there should be a bonus of an extra year of mileage maintenance to those who whine enough about it. After all Delta would be minus quite a few non rev infrequent customers if they do not change their plans.

Of course if the rumoured merger of nwa/DL ever occurs maybe DL would outsource its skymiles desk to KLM. They could just adopt the infamous KLM quote of "its not possible!" when faced with sucha dilema.

soitgoes

I don't mind the changing to a two year expiration policy (I worry about the "slippery slope" effect, but, hey, drastic changes can happen all on their own, too). What does bother me is accelerating the expiration of accounts for which Delta has already informed the member of a specific expiration date. This won't effect me because I doubt I'll go two years without SkyTeam travel, but it is potentially misleading to some subset of customers.

This evening, for example, I received my latest SkyMiles statement via e-mail. It says expiration "12/31/2009". I think that that is reason enough for a customer to expect that no future action is needed on the part of the member before 12/31/09. Under the new policy, these miles actually expire on 12/31/08.

rhetor

I don't think anyone is saying that the negative impact of an expiration policy is insurrmountable -- but it is, undeniably, going to inconvenience a lot of people who have gotten accustomed to not worrying about such things, especially the elderly who aren't as agile (in every sense) as they used to be. Does DL have the right to change its policy? Clearly. Do people have a right to complain? Clearly.

CountinPlaces

Delta has the perfect opportunity to change the rules regarding the old frequent flier miles while it is in bankruptcy. Their legal team probably suggested that this was the opportunity to clean up the tracking mess of the old system. Besides, I cannot imagine that the marketing department was too keen on having the old redemption table still in play after all these years.

mikey1003

When I spoke to Jeff Robertson's office, I was told millions and millions of miles...But when pressed, they admitted that many were orphan miles. I asked how many "continuous Medallion Members" held "significant "Old Miles" and was told that it is really a negligible number.

They feel that the cost of training customer service agent overweighs the negative impact.

I suggested that one phone number and a limited number of CSAs could easily handle the issue.....Like the special issues HHonors Diamond Desk..... It could also be handled by email only.

I have 640K Old Miles...Ya think Im upset??

I have burned almost 3MM, keeping the Old Miles for Old Awards when needed....