How many times do some of us have to restate the reasons for that? Besides the situation you mention, flying DL might make sense more than using the DL frequent flyer program does; some are close enough to X MM status that jumping ship entirely doesn't make sense yet wanting improvements in the programs on hitting that objective does make sense (just in case DL comes to its senses and later becomes more leader than laggard in this area).

Do I have to continue repeating myself in regards to why someone who thinks that DL SkyMiles has room for improvement would continue to use DL and/or DL's program?

No, SMS is only one aspect of the entire travel experience. There are many, many things about Delta that I (and others) like that are significantly better than AA or UA; however, SMS is one area that DL is behind most of the others. I think it has to do with the fact, as already mentioned, that SMS handles ALL elites whereas the other desks handle only the top tier. In some ways, we're comparing apples and oranges here; perhaps if DL had a special Platinum desk, then maybe things would be different.

I believe that there are ways to provide constructive criticism that Delta and DL employees here would appreciate. We (or at least I) like Delta a lot and we/I want to see them continuously improve (and not just from a 'me-me-me' perspective). That's why we continue to post here; if people simply disappeared or moved to other airlines without airing their issues, then DL would never know about it, and even if they wanted to, would not have had the opportunity to respond to or fix the situation.

I'm still hoping that Executive Partner's call-in service which is now in greater play than before is part of a pre-cursor to DL getting something like the AA EXP Desk and US's CP desk.

In fairness to them, I think if you do a search on the "usual suspects" names here, you'll see that they've kindly explained their motivations many times before.

My big issue is that it's always the same grievances over and over again - "PMUs", "SMS sucks", "SkyTeam is awful", etc. On the other hand, I do understand their frustration and can see why they hope that repetition reinforces their message.

I don't know the EXP desk or the CP desk, but the folks at the EP desk are very nice. They take ownership of any issues you may have and even if they don't know the answer, they'll make the calls to the other organizations for you.

From the way you and others have described the EXP and CP experience, I'd say Delta's not there yet, but they're trying AND it's Delta people on the phone, with the "Delta personality"

SMS isn't awful; it's just not a leader despite what I perceive as some improvements there. I'd just like to see DL have something that puts them in the lead ... or at least close the gap with other US airlines when it comes to what kind of service the airline's customers get when at the highest published top-tier status call in.

Cool beans for for the relative handful of EPs, but not meaningful to anybody else unless there is an intent to roll out a similar service for PMs.

I think GUWonder is right on target in this thread.....

David

Isn't the US Airways Chairman's Desk limited to their fourth tier - Chairman's Preferred?

Isn't the AA EXP Desk limited to their fourth tier - Executive Platinum (or something like that?)

Isn't UA UGS limited to their fourth tier - United Global Services?

Yes, well, for AA it's the third tier, for US, the 4th tier.

Another thing to note is that AA EXP, UA1K and US CP are all obtained with 100K EQMs vs. DL's 75K; US's 75K level, called Platinum Preferred, gets another SMS-type number, not the CP "Liaison" desk...

All this discussion (as well as the PMU discussion, etc.) leads me to believe that Delta should really think about creating an official fourth tier to recognize those who fly 100K or 125K instead of just occasional targeted benefits....as has been discussed many times before, most people don't see the need to go beyond 75K these days since there isn't really any recognition beyond that other than the 125K benefit (and now the secret EP level though that doesn't really count since it's not published).

As another point of comparison, NW has a Plat line with dedicated staff separate from their Gold line (NW's "Silver line" is just a number that bumps Silvers to the front of the queue for the regular phone agents). That's at 'third-tier' level.

Meanwhile, back in Dead-horse-land...

More seriously, I would agree that "some" or even "many" on this forum don't see a need to go beyond 75K. But that does not equate to "most" even on this forum, much less in the considerably larger world of Delta Medallions. After all, what percentage of Delta Medallions are on this forum. I doubt it is even as high as 1%. Not knocking the forum, just pointing out that the membership here is a very small sample, and likely not statistically significant.

David