If you have purchased a ticket on delta.com in the past few months, you may have noticed that there have been a few changes.
For example, once you have selected your flights, you are now offered the option to add a car, hotel and other travel related items to your shopping cart. We affectionately call this the “candy” aisle at delta.com.
After months of research, we determined that most of our customers needed one or more of these products as part of their travel experience, and would often come back to delta.com to buy these products or worse yet would visit other websites to complete these purchases.
Prior to implementing this technology, we wanted to:
- ensure that our customers would be assured of having the most competitive pricing available.
- offer the best possible experience online.
By partnering with two of Delta’s most valued partners, the AvisBudget Group, along with the Hilton Family of Hotels, we are delivering on our commitment to #1.
As for #2, we continue to refine the experience…in essence we have built the store shelves and need to continue to refine the product offerings.
We also understand that many customers don’t want any other products but Delta flights, and we understand that desire; that is why we have made the “continue with flights only,” or the “no candy aisle” button very visible.
With that being said, we would be very interested in knowing what other products you would like to see offered on delta.com, and your thoughts in general about the experience.
Chuck Jensen
General Manager
delta.com & self-service
September 13th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Hi, Chuck. First, I would like to congratulate Delta on the improvements made to the reservation process. I always like to shop in a candy store. However, let me say a few things about your discussion of competitive pricing. If I am to use this feature, I must have some assurance that the product really is competitive. While I understand that many factors contribute to the overall pricing, I compared the offering on a hotel in New York with a possible reservation on hilton.com. For the Waldorf-Astoria, the Delta web site showed a price of $779 with a cancellation fee of $25 for any cancellation, even 72 hours out. The hilton site showed, for the same stay, a price of $329 for a room, with a no-charge cancellation policy of 1 day before arrival. To use this feature, which could be a great convenience, I will have to be more convinced about the competitive nature of the site. In any event, keep up the good work.
September 13th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I like this feature and hope it works out well for you guys. Although I had my hotel booked before I booked my upcoming DL flight, I might have used this feature if I hadn’t already had my hotel and all sorted. I think that perhaps you should look at offering “bundled” deals at a discount, that might really be a seller.
Keep up the good work with the website.
September 13th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Delta does offer bundled deals. Visit deltavacations.com and you can find hotel and airfare bundles. Cars aren’t included if I remember correctly.
September 13th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I believe you should include the total price for all tickets on that page. Everytime I do a purchase for multiple travelers, it simply displays a single person price, which in return has me go to my calculator on my computer to add the sums up. It really would be convienent also to display the price of the purchase on the purchase page just as a safety precaution to those who may want to double check the price.
September 13th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
To add to the echo, bravo on the blog & website updates. One way to further improve the site would be to add information about which flights have the IFE touch-screen setup. I’ve noticed you can search the flight schedule, click on the flight number, and see that it has live TV, etc. However, during the actual flight search when shopping for a flight, the “In-Flight Services” link should specify whether the aircraft is equipped with this or not — this would be useful to me tonight while I’m shopping for an ATL-LAX itinerary, for example. Seems like a minor tweak would do the trick. Keep up the good work.
September 13th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
I like this feature as well. I actually just found the blog today. I have used this features to book hotels and cars since it is so easy. I do a lot of business travel with Delta. I would like to see more hotel choices but I realize ya’ll may have underlying reasons why you can’t have more hotel choices.
September 14th, 2007 at 2:03 am
Likewise, I agree… I thik yall are on the right track. More importantly, thanks for actually putting yourselves out there and talking with us!
No doubt, you understand that most frequent flyers like myself trust airlines about as much as we trust the US government (I’m not a diehard republican, if that clears up how I feel about them…)
Anyhow, this service is a good idea. I travel all the time. Finding a decent hotel to stay in is one of my most difficult tasks.
Here’s an idea: become a connoisseur of good spots to stay in major US cities. Offer travelers a discount, taking advantage of priceline, et al’s model by being be there first. Make it clear that that you offer a better deal at the get go. The idea rests upon what people perceive as good recommendations, not the hotels that happen to sign up. If you’re commendations are golden, word will spread. Otherwise… well… word will spread… but in a bad way… you know?
Anyways, welcome to what people at dull events call “the blogosphere” or “new media”. Good to have you with us.
Cheers!
September 14th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Ralph…you are absolutely correct, there should not be any disparity in pricing, and I will look into it further. Quite frankly we are still working through some of the details with our primary vendors, of which Hilton is the hotelier. As part of their commitment to delta.com, by early November our Hilton hotel selection will be guaranteed to be equal to that of hilton.com. That should address that issue more effectively! Unless we can establish credibility in that regard we will not be able to gain the confidence of customers.
irishflier…bundled pricing is available as Eric suggested, and yes some packages include cars. However, these packages are more common for leisure markets, versus a Memphis or Atlanta.
jomomojo…have to check on yours, as I though it did offer the level of detail that you are suggesting, but not my specific area…will let you know.
Thanks,
Chuck
Stay tuned, as we plan on offering promotions as time goes on. We only open the store and there is much more that we plan on doing in the future.
September 14th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Hi Chuck,
While I think the ability to book “other stuff” on delta.com is fantastic, I am disappointed by the performance hit while waiting for it to load. As a road warrior, I am often booking travel while connected to public hotspots, and the recent enhancements significantly slow down my booking over a marginal connection.
I would like to see these optional items as collapsed-but-expandable so that you can expand only the section you need. This would allow me to simply click through when I don’t need anything additional, and then take the performance hit in waiting for the graphics when I do want to book additional travel components.
In other positive comments - BRAVO! for including carbon offsets as one of the additional options. I would like to see this on the first page to be included more easily, as I often forget to select the “Additional Options” component. Pre-collapsed sections would allow all available components to be on the same booking page.
Thank you for this blog, and listening to your customers!
September 14th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Hi,
In my opinion Delta should sell other ground transportation options such as train tickets, buses, vans, etc. on delta.com. For example if I were traveling from ATL to EWR, my final destination being Stamford, CT, I could purchase Amtrak tickets on Delta.com, or have the train and plane be one price. Another example would be I were to fly from JFK to CDG, and have my final destination be Dijon, France. If I were able to buy TGV tickets with my flight it would be very convenient. Lastly, if I were flying from JFK to SLC to ski at Alta, being able to book van tickets from the airport to the ski resort on delta.com would be great!
September 18th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
banichiji…you are so right! I too am disappointed in the load time. Although, it seems to vary from market to market, time of day, etc. Our tech team has been looking into this issue, and we hope to have a resolution soon. Make sure that you take advantage of the “continue with flights only” button…should help a little. As far as the “Carbon Offset” feature, a lot of customers have expressed an interest in participating, but have also commented that it is not as prevelant as they would like…including my own family! With that being said, we are looking at what options might be available to us.
And, SkyMiler, great suggestion on the train. Haven’t really looked at that specifically, although we do have pretty good “ground transportation” coverage in NYC, BOS, DCA, etc. I actually have some contacts at Amtrak, that I will follow-up with.
Thanks…spread the word that delta.com is not just air anymore!
cj
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:50 pm
What Delta is doing is much better than what I’ve seen other airlines offer. I like the “one stop check-out” versus most airline sites that cross-sell hotels, which in reality is often a hand-off to another site (whether the hotel’s, or a online agency like Expedia or an affiliate).
I hope DL will consider adding other hotel partners in the future.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
I like the idea, but its hard to trust a huge airline that they are offering the best deals available through their site. With the hotels, I unfortunately dont make enough money to really consider any Hilton. With the cars, I do like AVIS, I just rented from them last week and good (not excellent) customer service and cars, but since i’m still under 25 I get better rates from USAA.
Adding ground transportation options would be awesome. But here’s something even better- more airport maps and information during the booking process, and maybe team up with Sky Mag to make links available from city codes to previous articles. I like being able to click on a city code during the booking process and see roughly how the airport is laid out- there should be more airports in the database.
If you do add the ground transportation option, it could help local companies team up with Delta to offer people a better alternative to just having to rent cars (Honolulu especially)
September 27th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
Sorry guys, but I have been traveling and had limited access to my compouter, but enough excuses.
royal-jet-service (that one brings back some memories…think we offered something similar in First Class, many years ago, before my time!
Both you and paparazzi1983, bring up some interesting ideas. Offering other hotels besides Hilton, and we do, but it sounds like we could do a better job of featuring them. If you click, show more hotels, you will see a variety of brands other than the Hilton, although the Hilton Family does include more “budget” minded properties. In some markets, we even sell Super 8’s etc.
Maps are a great idea, and are on our list for the hotel display. Airport maps are on the site, but not in the booking process. It would be pretty cool if you could hover over the city code and see the airport. Not sure what level of effort that would take, but we’ll look into it.
Thanks,
Chuck
October 4th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Hey Chuck
Sometimes when I’ve searched flights, I’ve notied that sometimes it has me staying over a night at a aiport. Maybe make that more known and also offer hotels near the airport that offer free shuttle services for those travelers who may not want to have the whole Terminal experience… If you could negotiate cheaper rates with hotels near airports for such travelers in exchange for their hotel to be featured it would be more beneficial to Delta.
October 15th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Sorry for the delay, but I have been traveling again (for pleasure, and I plan on writing about it). Paparazzi, when you say you searched for flights and it had you overnighting…uhm, can you give me an example, as that sounds very unusual. Although, there are some nice terminals out there, I don’t think anybody wants to spend more time than needed.
Chuck