Read carefully and repeat after me: Delta CANNOT be trusted. With recent moves shocking even the greatest of cynics, it’s clear that the airline is fully determined to run loyalty into the ground, while turning frequent flyer miles into a hobby with little to no reward, even for their most frequent customers. Let’s take a painful walk down memory lane in regards to Delta and their Skymiles program, which is still unraveling today…
Years Ago Delta Removed Award Charts, For Seats Using Miles, Which Was Intentionally Confusing…
How many miles does it take to get from City A to City B? This should be a fair and easy question for an airline, but for Delta, it’s not. Delta removed all charts with reference to how many miles a person would theoretically need, while simultaneously launching five levels of potential pricing for each city pair. Something like New York to Miami can range from 12,500 miles round trip in economy to 125,000 miles round trip, and for most, they have no idea whether they’re getting a good deal, which is entirely the point from Delta’s end…
Then They Jacked Up The Price In Miles Again And Again Without Telling Us…
Those “in the know” who study these things have a rough guestimate of Delta’s award chart, even though it doesn’t exist. Business class between the US and Europe was once 100,000 miles round trip. It then jumped to 125,000, without notice, and then again this year to 140,000, again without notice. It felt like things couldn’t get any more confusing and any worse, and then today they…
And Then They Devalued Award Flights Using Miles On Partners AGAIN Yesterday, Without Telling Us…
As you can now see, Delta is officially at war with anyone hoping to extract great value for their miles. Delta offers perfectly nice service on board, with solid seats, but often times their partners, with who you can use your Delta Skymiles offer better value for your miles. Flying Virgin Atlantic Upper Class, the airline’s take on business class has long been a really fun way to use miles. Without notice today, the rates for one way in Upper Class jumped from the 70,000 we’ve sadly become used to this year, all the way to 85,000. The same sad story now applies to Virgin Australia, Korean Air, China Eastern and virtually all Delta partners, who’ve overnight seen jumps as high as 20,000 miles for a one way ticket rate.
And All This Is On Top Of Extremely Frustrating Policies, Smoke And Mirrors…
Some airlines make upgrades extremely easy. It takes no more than a minute to complete a search and see if seats are available. With Delta, there’s absolutely no way to look into upgrade without calling. They intentionally removed tools to check for upgrade space from their site and all other internet sites which offer frequent flyer tools. The only way to find out about upgrading using miles is to call in and ask. Of course you have to take their less than friendly agents on their word that way. All of this means that Delta is making their miles useless, their flyers frustrated, and in the process, killing American Express by tarnishing their co branded credit card deal. Who wants miles with little to no value?
