RealDLInsider - Questions/Answers
#31
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Georgia
Programs: DL DM/2MM
Posts: 1,037
Spin is the only way to describe the two changes as being a "giveback": (a) offer an option that values miles at $.01 per mile; and (b) add a "super" Skychoice tier that gives you no more than Skychoice used to offer for more miles. Sounds like "giveback" is DL's way of saying "give me back your points."
#32
Suspended
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 9,916
I agree as well! DL should at least have 4 hour hold times for phone award tickets that would allow us to TICKET it online and avoid the booking fees. 4 hour holds also let us arrange hotel/car as well, and would NOT take away from award inventory for a noticeable period of time. I would gladly trade 24-hour online award holds for 4-hour phone holds.
Very good idea! The hotel/flight coordination is always the key.
#33
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
Programs: DL PM, HH Diamond, Fairmont Prem, SPG Gold, Priority Club Plat/IC Amb, AmEx Plat
Posts: 10,839
I agree as well! DL should at least have 4 hour hold times for phone award tickets that would allow us to TICKET it online and avoid the booking fees. 4 hour holds also let us arrange hotel/car as well, and would NOT take away from award inventory for a noticeable period of time. I would gladly trade 24-hour online award holds for 4-hour phone holds.
#35
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Earth
Posts: 912
The pay with miles has been considered positive to this point? By who? Borrowing from a Loanshark to buy your ticket would likely be a better deal than that soak job program......
#36
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: SEA - DL DM/2MM, *A Gold, SPG Lifetime Plat, some other car and hotel stuff
Posts: 5,649
Jeff, your last post was nearly 7 weeks ago. The tradition here has been that you post something like this which raises a ton of questions, some of them pretty insightful. But you don't come back for nearly 7 weeks, at which time, you sorta kinda tangentially touch upon a few of the issues raised.
How about a more stable official presence, a la CO or Starwood?
Neat stat on the 90%/10%. I doubt anyone would have guessed close to that. Knowing this tidbit makes the change seem more reasonable to me (admittedly, being PM makes it much easier to swallow, with free re-deposits).
One other thing: You continue to charge $20 phone ticketing fees for awards that can't be booked online. This is very unfair. It doesn't give you much incentive to improve the very buggy award calendar and booking engine.
Jeff, as I raised in a much earlier post, you had told us some time ago that the change was to affect only a very select group of high-profile flights. In truth, it turned out that it affected every single flight systemwide, since any flight w/o inventory of M or lower couldn't be booked as SkyChoice. I think you continue to misrepresent the situation when you say "it was done to protect the most peak flights throughout our system"
A few points. First of all, you should know your audience (in this case, FTers) better. You should know that the FT community as a whole wouldn't be very excited about PWM, and wouldn't consider it a meaningful "giveback" to what was taken away. Joe Flyer might be excited, and I am not surprised that your broader marketing materials are made accordingly, but at this forum, you should know us better than to hold out PWM as a great giveback, as it sets us up for certain letdown.
Secondly, you mention lots of PWM redemptions. Can you explain how you will calculate and publish stats on award redemptions now. I suspect that you will use PWM to inflate the reported total, whereas PWM is not what most of us are looking to use.
How about a more stable official presence, a la CO or Starwood?
Question: It looks like you are moving to immediate ticketing of award seats?
Answer: It is true that we now require “immediate ticketing” of award seats for bookings made via our phone-reservations department, however we continue to retain the 48-hour hold for award reservations made at delta.com. A recent finding and to our surprise, is that almost 90% of the award reservations booked via phone and also online, are never ticketed and eventually cancel at the 48-hour expiration window. Unfortunately, it is rare that a customer calls us back to cancel a held award reservation, and as mentioned, only 1 in 10 of them ever get ticketed. This is a significant number of award seats that are held up by customers, with many other customers willing to take and ticket them. The policy change may make it inconvenient for some, but it will benefit far more.
Answer: It is true that we now require “immediate ticketing” of award seats for bookings made via our phone-reservations department, however we continue to retain the 48-hour hold for award reservations made at delta.com. A recent finding and to our surprise, is that almost 90% of the award reservations booked via phone and also online, are never ticketed and eventually cancel at the 48-hour expiration window. Unfortunately, it is rare that a customer calls us back to cancel a held award reservation, and as mentioned, only 1 in 10 of them ever get ticketed. This is a significant number of award seats that are held up by customers, with many other customers willing to take and ticket them. The policy change may make it inconvenient for some, but it will benefit far more.
One other thing: You continue to charge $20 phone ticketing fees for awards that can't be booked online. This is very unfair. It doesn't give you much incentive to improve the very buggy award calendar and booking engine.
Question: Can you clarify the SkyChoice change made in December and will this program continue?
Answer: The SkyChoice change that restricted last-seat availability was made in early December and will remain in effect until we launch our new three-tiered award structure. As I’ve mentioned before, it was done to protect the most peak flights throughout our system, and will impact only a few thousand customers at most – or significantly less than 1% of all redemptions...
Answer: The SkyChoice change that restricted last-seat availability was made in early December and will remain in effect until we launch our new three-tiered award structure. As I’ve mentioned before, it was done to protect the most peak flights throughout our system, and will impact only a few thousand customers at most – or significantly less than 1% of all redemptions...
Jeff, as I raised in a much earlier post, you had told us some time ago that the change was to affect only a very select group of high-profile flights. In truth, it turned out that it affected every single flight systemwide, since any flight w/o inventory of M or lower couldn't be booked as SkyChoice. I think you continue to misrepresent the situation when you say "it was done to protect the most peak flights throughout our system"
Secondly, you mention lots of PWM redemptions. Can you explain how you will calculate and publish stats on award redemptions now. I suspect that you will use PWM to inflate the reported total, whereas PWM is not what most of us are looking to use.
#37
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: He who dies with the most miles wins!!
Programs: WorldPerks Demoted again to SE, DL 3.1MM Hilton Diamond, SPG Gold
Posts: 11,674
Thanks for starting what is sure to be a very interesting thread. I only ask one thing; in about 36 hours, after a lot of commentary and discussion has appeared here, could you return to this thread and directly address the points which are developed? Your previous threads you haven't done this (iirc), and if you do it will make a big difference for all involved. You will also surprise a lot of us.
TIA,
TIA,
#38
Original Member and FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Kansas City, MO, USA
Programs: DL PM/MM, AA ExPlat, Hyatt Glob, HH Dia, National ECE, Hertz PC
Posts: 16,579
I totally disagree, I think the new three tier award system plus PwM is a positive change that will allow greater redemption options without have to go to SkyChoice than was available previously.
#39
Original Member and FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Kansas City, MO, USA
Programs: DL PM/MM, AA ExPlat, Hyatt Glob, HH Dia, National ECE, Hertz PC
Posts: 16,579
So do what I have been doing for the last 4 months.....spend the miles like crazy....I have spent 300,000 miles on 8 award tickets (6 international ones and 2 thanksgiving tickets) for Mrs. LLS138 and I over the last 4 months and still have 120,000 (+ about 50,000 I will earn before June by flying) to burn through within the next month or so....planning vacations/weekend getaways out until next spring now.....the hard part and getting harder is finding places to use them as I can never ever find suitable TATL skysaver seats.
#40
Original Member and FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Kansas City, MO, USA
Programs: DL PM/MM, AA ExPlat, Hyatt Glob, HH Dia, National ECE, Hertz PC
Posts: 16,579
How can it be considered a negative ... if you don't want to use it, don't use it ... how does it hurt you that others have another redemption option that you don't want to use?
#41
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
Programs: DL PM, HH Diamond, Fairmont Prem, SPG Gold, Priority Club Plat/IC Amb, AmEx Plat
Posts: 10,839
Previous Example...
New York LGA to Vail EGE
December 24, 2008 - December 28, 2008
Old System:
F ticket - $4493.97
SkyChoice - 90,000 Miles
New System:
F ticket - $4493.97
SkyChoice - Unavailable because this is one of "those" routes.
Pay with 90,000 Miles (assuming 1 mile = $.01) = $4493.97 - $900 = $3593.97
#42
Join Date: Feb 1999
Location: San Jose, California, USA
Programs: AS 100K, UA MM, AA MM, IC Plat Amb, Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold, Hyatt Explorist
Posts: 3,146
Remember, PwM was the "giveback" for decimating SkyChoice. If DL had kept SkyChoice the same and added PwM as an additional option, then that would have been a positive. Now, DL no longer allows SkyChoice in many cases, leaving PwM as the only (poor) option available.
#43
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: BOS
Programs: CO Silver; DL FO; SPG Gold; HH Gold
Posts: 880
I actually like the new PwM system. It seems like it'd be very useful for the infrequent flyer with a low mileage balance. The average FlyerTalker probably will not find it very useful, but I don't think it's designed for us.
Overall, I find the changes to be quite negative. Making it impossible to hold tickets on other than a few online-accessible partners (assuming the website works properly for even those) is absolutely ludicrous. The new tiers are not great, but are not absolutely horrible IF current SkySaver availability does not diminish, however I have a feeling that many seats will move from the low tier to the middle tier. If your review of waitlisting results in negative changes there, I will be very disappointed and be even more likely to simply cash in my SkyMiles as quickly as I can and not accrue more, specifically looking for international J tickets on partner airlines on costly routes.
And despite liking Pay with Miles in general, it is not a "giveback" to frequent fliers. Please do not spin it as such to educated members of this forum. We know our miles are easily redeemed for well over 1c/mile under the current award structure.
#44
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: ATL
Programs: DL GM
Posts: 998
Once again, I used to fly mostly DL for the skymiles. Now I will choose my flights based solely on flight cost and flight schedule as the benefit of earning skymiles is shrinking....see OP.
#45
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: San Francisco/Tel Aviv/YYZ
Programs: CO 1K-MM
Posts: 10,763
Hit and run....He won't be back for a month or three
I haven't seen a positive change yet. 3 tiers isn't positive, its "revenue maximization" which is skymiles DEVALUATION.
Pay with miles is neutral at best, anyone that knows better will know its a ripoff, and those who don't are being suckered.
Eliminating phone holds? that's a bit draconian isn't it? Given that availability is spotty, it makes sense to let people make sure their other arrangements can work.
If RealDLInsider looked at how CO Insider interacts with FT, he'd see a much more mutually beneficial arrangement. But this guy just spews press releases with nothing but bad news.