It’s not often that I am disappointed with Delta Air Lines. They run, without question IMHO, the best airline operation in the USA. They deliver a reliable and desirable product. The airline is in a word, solid. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the company, its managers, and its employees. That hasn’t changed, but things like this annoy me:
I’m referring to Delta’s decision to prohibit ExpertFlyer from displaying any information related to Delta. I use ExpertFlyer weekly to inform my travel decisions, and I think Delta’s decision is regrettable at best. In truth, I suspect those of us that use ExpertFlyer frequently represent a fraction of Delta’s customer base, and a not much greater percentage of their Medallion customer base. I’d love to be wrong about that, but I’m likely not. Has life as I know it come to an end? No. Do I think Delta “hates customers?” No. Am I disappointed in Delta for making this decision? Yes, I am. Do I think Delta cares what I think? No, and maybe that’s the most disappointing thing of all.
-MJ, September 1, 2014
Last Delta burn of 100k each business class to Europe was 2012. Never looked back, however fear that the remaining US carriers are not far behind the end of points and miles as we have known it.
Currently on 43 day RTW first class US Air redemption booked before exit from Star alliance.
Mark
Sadly, it seems that even WN will not be much of an option out of ATL in 2015. WN is slashing a good number of the old AirTran direct routes out of ATL and turning over an even greater monopoly to Delta. As ATL is my home airport, I really don’t see a reasonable way to consistently use an alternative to DL.
Thanks for the clarification on your corporate travel policy. I thought your company may have restricted or banned delta travel because of the way skymiles 2015 exacerbates the conflict of interest between employers and employees. I like delta in general but get the feeling that I’m the frog in the pot on slow boil.
MJ delta has been taking lessons from Putin, or vice versa. Delta will push it’s new-found romance with profits and its oligopoly power as far as possible and then some. I’m not expert enough to know about ExpertFlyer, but it takes no expert to see where delta and its mentor are headed. Delta is pretty well run operationally compared to the other two large US carriers and its past performance. As a 2mm who lived trough the NWA merger, I will attest to that. And the games they are playing with the 2015 ff program, SDCs, transcon upgrades, expert flyer etc. are not worth the smiles I get from the good delta employees. The only reason delta is in a position to do this to us is the business we gave it when things weren’t so rosy and it faced real competition. At least delta is wise enough to drop the “thank you for your loyalty” greetings and stick with “thank you for your business” i.e. money. As deltaPoints states, delta’s ravishment of its ff program is far from complete.
You are correct that delta cares nothing for your opinion, but it cares a lot about your $$$. You said your company will not allow travel on delta in 2015. Do you know why? IMO that is a wise decision. Please excuse my strong opinions on this..
@John,
I used ExpertFlyer for pretty basic stuff – the biggest two of which were monitoring available seats, and checking inventory for SDC availability. It’s annoying as all get-out that I can’t do that on my own anymore, but I’ll live….and call Delta more than I used to. I don’t like it one bit.
Also, I had posted that the majority of our contracted business out of ATL is going to WN….and I think it had more to do with dollars/cents than anything else. I can fly DL if I can get a decent fare. Irregardless, I’m going to be spending more time on WN next year. I’ll finish up Platinum Medallion this year, and see what happens next.