Comments on: A New Year, a Better Travel Experience

By: cj2seven

cj2seven — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 18:21:07 +0000

You have got to be kidding me. I have never had more aggravation with an airline in my entire life. Especially over a simple trip. I booked a flight in January and two weeks ago my return flight was cancelled and my friends and I were all put on different returns flight, the one they put me on stopped 3 times to get home! over 11 hours of travel time! So I called and asked to get a refund for the return, the outbound is fine and I WAS ADAMANT about wanting the outbound since a large group is on this flight. They said no problem and its noted on the request, he gave me ticket numbers and case number and to check on status later but refunds take about ten days. So I get an email yesterday saying my request is being processed for the total amount. I quickly call because I dont want to lose my outbound flight and if it gets booked im screwed. So I waited over an hour being put back and forth on hold to finally speak with a supervisor who basically told me “well you wanted a refund and we dont refund part of trip if you want your seat back we can sell you for current ticket price!!!! thats all. I said cant you look back at logs and request to see that. I wasnt asking for a free flight or any special treatment I just wanted what was right and what I was told. How could I talk to someone for an hour about something that cant be done. Why would I want a refund for a roundtrip flight to only then repurchase the same outbound for double the price?!?!? I asked why couldnt they just discount the flight to what i payed because they made a mistake. I was talked to in the rudest manner and I can not believe they just screwed up my trip and cost me so much more money! My ticket number to see 0062169735961! I had to buy the same flight I already had for double what my roundtrip cost, and got a return flight on another airline! So a flight I purchased for 280 in january is costing me $900 total now! UNREAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By: kathryn7775

kathryn7775 — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 01:06:53 +0000

Why does delta allow you to pay for upgrades however don’t give them to you? I am on a flight right now seating in a seat that is not what I purchased and when I tried to show them that I paid for an upgrade they said this is where I and my husband need to sit … They did not know which code stood for what and given that due to a delayed flight I only had 17 mins to get on my second flight and when we got on the flight they said I would have to go and speak to the people at the gate however they where doing final boarding … My husband and I are traveling on our 20 wedding ANV. He is six feet nine inches and over 300 lbs and is in a middle seat

Delta I can’t believe that a flight attendant can’t allow a person to move to an open seat…

Come on

Our first flight was screwed up our second flight is screwed up … Anyone want to take my beat that my third flight will be as well….

By: flyingcolonel

flyingcolonel — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:16:15 +0000

on flight 802 as I boarded plane, a flight attendant was blocking the entrance to 1st chatting with his buddies. I tapped him on the shoulder and said “excuse me” and he allowed me to pass. he then followed me to my seat to tell me that he did not like to be touched and that I should have simply asked him (or his back which was facing me) to move. difficult to believe that any customer (or, in my case, a diamond 2 million miler flying colonel) would have to ask the flight attendant to pay attention to his passengers, vacate the door to the cabin and then tolerate being reprimanded by the attendant. can’t imagine doing his job without being touched at times. . .

By: Oman

Oman — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:06:01 +0000

We boarded our flight from JFK to LHR! It was a night flight and starting to snow, the plane wasn’t full by any means! Air hostesses were really friendly and said we could spread out to sleep if we wished. I didn’t have to as this airline had ample leg room and I’m a tall person, the seat slid forward and reclined and was comfortable……

By: flyingforaliving

flyingforaliving — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:03:59 +0000

Delta has steadily become less competitive in pricing, for example the DTW-BOS route where delta has a monopoly, the fare runs between $700 and $800 for RT flight midweek. this compares to $265 for DTW-LGA… similar DTW-BWI is so much cheaper than DTW-DCA also the DELTA web site has become less price shopper friendly with the elimination of the surrounding airport comparison function- despite this, the main web page still offers More Search Options
(Includes Flexible Airport & Meeting Event Code) – but when you go to the advanced page the surrounding flexible airport search is nowhere to be found…all of this has caused me to go to TRAVELOCITY where I can comparison shop and search surrounding airports. Now that I have started doing this, I find other airlines are cheaper, although the DELTA monopoly on certain markets has increased prices. WHERE ARE THE FEDERAL ANTITRUST LAWS when you need them???

By: Nautonnier

Nautonnier — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 15:16:16 +0000

I am also a Diamond Medallion member and like most I am flying almost every week. The problems with online booking, award travel and all the little rules and epicycles are there because I do not believe anyone at Delta does a ‘Usability Test’ of these systems. It is extremely easy if you have designed a system to navigate through it and not notice the traps and ‘features’ that become really irritating for users.
It is not uncommon to want to book travel with a couple with one using miles and the other booking a normal flight. You cannot do that on delta.com and guarantee that the couple can sit together – and you cannot do it by calling the medallion line as they apparently cannot book the award/skymiles travel. This is symptomatic of lack of testing. I am sure that there are many frequent fliers that could assist in this testing you should make use of them.
And I agree with krasowss the use of one-way prices which your business managers seem to like is just another irritant – are you ashamed of your full round trip prices that you want to hide them? The Skymiles exchange rate to actual miles seems to be of the order of 30 Skymiles to actual air-miles this is a large jump up and a hidden reduction in benefits – again these are decisions that Delta has made it would be better to tell your business managers not to hide these changes behind one way prices, blackouts, other restrictions and multiple different ‘clever’ names. Be upfront and straightforward and less complicated.

So I would suggest building standard booking scenarios that you can capture from past bookings or by talking to your frequent (and not so frequent) fliers. Then either using your own staff, or preferably people from your target demographic, run tests of your process for usability. Record the misunderstandings and frustrations and have your IT and business people fix them. Remember, this isn’t testing that your site and applications work – it’s usability testing to ensure that your customers can use the system effectively and efficiently and they will vary from people who are trying your site and booking processes for the first time to people like me who regular users.

By: muj

muj — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 15:35:34 +0000

Goodness gracious, a better travel experience?! Flight 2064 on 1/17/13 a flight at 6:30p from SDF to ATL. Simple flight, right? Not if you have personnel issues and you stereotypically use the constituents of the Louisville, KY as a buffer for your problems. This is a bad habit of your traffic manager and seems to indicate a discriminatory pattern. Maybe a class-action investigation and criminal inquiry would make Delta management take notice to the unusual circumstances around why SDF and the citizens of this state are used as a shock absorber. Maybe we don’t count when we fly first class.

By: DiamondShott

DiamondShott — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 18:26:41 +0000

I agree fully with krasowss. Almost lost my marbles when I got the email about the MQDs. While the new Medallion Qualification Dollars only helps individuals like me who fly on refundable tickets because of my agency, it will really put the already shaky Medallion Program further in the druthers. Its nearly impossible since the tiered award travel system to book anything for low mileage (i.e. my brother meets me in Brazil from Chicago for 30K on AA *sigh*). The rollovers are one nice aspect of the program. Its really being pushed as an “enhancement” or an “exclusivity” when really it is not because there are no improvements to the broken booking engine (e.g. empty seat map yet all awards are high level), availability of reasonably priced award tickets, improvement to the cramped lounges, I could go on and on…

By: DeltaManiac

DeltaManiac — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 13:36:38 +0000

While I did not make it clear in my previous post, I was referring to the lack of low-tier awards and did not mean to imply that there were no award seats to choose from. But in my view only having mid-tier and high-tier awards available (and the ridiculously high mileage requirements accompanying them) is not the way to reward loyal SkyMiles members.

By: DeltaManiac

DeltaManiac — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:22:55 +0000

I would like to preface this post by saying that I have been a loyal Delta customer for over 30 years. I am a Million Miler, a Flying Colonel, and a lifetime Silver Medallion.

I too echo the comments of krasowss in terms of giving you kudos for the work that has been done and is being done to improve the flying experience. I love Delta, and I only fly Delta, even though my business responsibilities have changed and business travel is no longer a frequent event for me. However, any flight I do book (and all members of my family and extended family) are all exclusively on Delta.

It bothers me when I read in various blogs that, despite claims to the contrary, Delta makes it so difficult to redeem mileage for award travel. I am certain you are well-aware of the cumbersome and completely ineffective award calendar. In all surveys, Delta comes in dead last in terms of ability to obtain desired itineraries using award tickets. Why is it so dfifficult for Delta to make more seats available for award travel? Don’t you want to reward those that have, through their loyalty to Delta, earned the right to at least get some choice when it comes to obtaining an award ticket? It’s pretty sad when you check the award calendar (again, always a negative experience) 11 months out as soon as a travel day comes in range, only to find there are no award seats to choose from. At one point a couple of years ago, Delta claimed that it made more seats avaialble than competitors for last mintue travel, but even that seems to now be a joke. I don’t know about most travelerss, but I don’t have the flexibility to suddenly plan a trip to Europe 3 days before a departure date when seats suddently become available.

Also, please reconsider your policy to award lifetime Silver status to Million Milers. United gives Gold status to its Million Milers, and as the Silver program becomes less and less attractive and beneficial, it would be great if Delta could reward its long-term loyalists by providing Million Milers with Gold status.

I can’t help but think what C. E. Woolman would think about this disconnect between loyalty and reward.

Congratualtions on all of your endeavors to make Delta the worldwide airline of choice. Now if you could just make it easier to reward your most loyal customers with better award availabitity and more appropriate recognition of Million Milers, those loyal customers will find it easier to enjoy all of these improvements you are initiating.

Thanks for taking the time to consider this.