weekilter

Chris didn't really have a serious consumer "problem," but he had an issue that regular customer service channels couldn't help him with. He's a very frequent flyer, but had been accumulating miles through Alaska Airlines, even though he now does all of his flying with Delta. He sent off concise and businesslike executive e-mail carpet bomb explaining his dilemma, and promising Delta all of his business if they'd match his l33t MVP Gold status.

"I just wanted to pass on an amazing experience I just had with Delta. I've been an Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan member for years, but last year ended up flying over 65,000 miles on Delta alone. I wanted to see if Delta would match my MVP Gold status with their Skymiles Gold Status. I called the Skymiles helpline, but was shut down pretty quick, so I decided an email might be the best route. A Google search for Delta's executives brought me to the Consumerist Website with an article about reaching Delta's executives via email. It was from 2007, but I decided I'd still give it a shot. I was immediately notified that seven emails were undeliverable, so I just figured I'd done my best, and laid the issue to rest. That is until this morning when I received a call from the personal secretary of Delta's CEO Richard Anderson, notifying me that he received my email and would be happy to match my status! Delta just earned a loyal customer for life.

Here's a copy of the email blast I sent out to the execs, even though
most were undeliverable:

Delta Executives:

Good afternoon. My name is Chris [Last Name], and I am a frequent flyer with
over 125,000 miles flown in 2010, and over 68,000 miles logged
exclusively on Delta. I'm from Portland, Oregon and use your direct
service from PDX to Tokyo to connect get to Shanghai. I'm writing
today hoping that Delta will be able to match my Alaska Airlines
Mileage Plan MVP Gold Status with the Skymiles Gold Status for the
year 2011. The problem I face is that if I start using my Skymiles
account, I will not have any status or the ability to use Sky
Priority, which is what I receive as a MVP Gold with Alaska. ... "

http://consumerist.com/2010/12/delta...yers-plea.html

DillMan

Awesome. Now whenever someone posts about status matches for any carrier, someone will inevitably recommend they email bomb the executives of that airline.

ScottC

WOW. Someone outside of FT discovered the status match.

Instead of wasting his time hassling the CEO, he could have gone to Google, typed in "status match" and be done with it. Heck, the first result it off FT and even includes the Delta fax numeber for match requests.

Sigh.

PaulKarl

What is it with your condescending attitudes?

The customer service reps were apparently poorly trained and didn't know how to status match. So he contacts a high corporate officer, who helps. That's how it's supposed to work.

ScottC

But that is exactly the part I don't get - if someone is bright enough to Google for the executive contacts with the airline, why can't they just Google to see if anyone has any other information on status matches.

Apparently sending an email carpet bomb and contacting Consumerist is easier than just Googling "status match"?

chuckd83

seriously, he couldn't have done a little research before?

mreed911

No, it's not. There are several layers between CSR's and CEO's. Those exist for a reason. Carpet-bombing the CEO is *not* how it's supposed to work.