Yes, the CEO should have time for this

I get this promotional email from Delta. Transfer miles to another account at a penny a mile and they give the recipient a 20% bonus and waive for you the usual $ 25 transfer fee. Nice I say, and as I get ready to top off my son's account I feel good about helping Delta as it tries to fend off US Air.  I have a love-hate relationship with Delta but after 2.5 million lifetime miles I would lie if I did not say I would like to see Delta stay independent.

So I check his account to see what I need to transfer to get him to the next award threshold, and I am shocked - it shows 0 miles. I drill in and 2 days ago the miles were wiped out for lack of activity. Strange I say - you are allowed 3 years of inactivity before they do so.

I call customer service and the agent tells me the rules have changed. Two years of inactivity and your miles go poof.  I beg him to reverse it - it's only been 2 days. He cannot do a thing. I ask for a supervisor and tell her I am a 2 million miler, and can she help?. She goes "Thanks for your business. Wish your son did that much with us. Cannot help him." I offer her to transfer miles, to please back date so he gets the activity he needs. No way. No more escalation, she says (at this point I am only at level 1 escalation), Write a letter to corporate. Every question the answer is - write that letter.

I have not written that letter. I sent an email to the on-line customer service. Hopefully some sympathetic soul will find a way to take my money and reverse that two day old entry.

But deep down, I have a feeling I will have to write a paper letter to Atlanta. Hate to bother Gerald Grinstein over such a trivial matter when he is fighting for Delta's life. But if I do, I hope the fact that Delta was my son's first investment and has been his first and primary airline through his early years will stir a sympathetic response. I just wish the employees under him were more empowered to shield him from such trivia.

Update: Happy ending with the CFO (yes!) helping out - see here

Comments

[Dennis Howlett]

Shock, horror: Begging to be back dated - whatever next? I wonder if you'd have been treated differently if your name was Steve Jobs.

[vinnie mirchandani]

Heheh/ I think he is probably more worried about Cisco -)

But...the Delta supervisor who handled my call almost drove me to tears. Oh, not because of the potential miles lost for my son (though it was just below the threshold to get a free trip to Europe so worth trying to salvage)

It was because it brought home sharply the absymal state of customer service in so many industries. I realize I can be an obnoxious customer but for the lady to not help at all, to not even try to escalate (she alternatively told me she could not technology wise or her boss was not in at that time ), for there to not be policy to reinstate such miles for a fee (surely every year people must wake up and find their miles had expired) etc etc

From now on every time I have a good call center experience I am going to thank them profusely. But more importantly I will be tempted to send their management a nice letter complimenting them for having policies which allow customer service reps to provide customer service...

[Zoli Erdos]

Reminds me of my erased British Airways miles - without a single email warning, of course:-(

[Charlie Wood]

I used to fly-and therefore deal with airline "customer service"-a lot. It was almost always a maddening experience (especially with Delta).

But then I had an epiphany that changed my life: I realized that commercial air travel is not a service business; it's a cargo business. And we're the cargo. The airlines ship our bodies from one place to another. If they happen to do anything more than that (e.g., also ship our luggage, give us something to eat or drink, smile at us, try make us comfortable-or at least less uncomfirtable, etc.) that's great, but that's not what they're in business to do.

Now when I fly, I think of myself as a package, an inanimate piece of freight being shipped from one locale to another, and it all seems to make more sense. I may get dropped, kicked, scuffed, and generally abused along the way, but if I get to my destination I'm satisfied. (What's the alternative? Drive?)

Lower your expectations. Sure, you're a 2 Million Miler. But that just means you're a package that keeps getting sent around the world. Would FedEx treat such a package any better?

-c

[vinnie mirchandani]

Depressing, Charlie. I guess I should just get a tattoo - a baggage tag code -)

[Jeff Nolan]

If I had 1 frequent flier mile for every one of these stories I would be a 2.5 million miler... and if there were not all these stories maybe all the bankrupt airlines wouldn't be bankrupt.

At this point the negative brand perceptions for the major airlines are so established that they would, IMO, be better off scrapping the companies and starting over.

It should not be lost on anyone that the airlines that are making money are low cost carriers who enjoy strong customer service reputations.

[Dennis Howlett]

This is not restricted to the US but is just as common in the UK, France and Spain (all countries of which I have personal experience) across a swathe of industries. There are lots of descriptions but to me it comes down to one thing, TRUST.

Companies don't trust their employees to give them the permission to make sensible, common sense decisions that would be good for business. Instead they empower people to say no. That's a lot more comfortable for both sides because then there can be no mistake in process execution.

It can take on a ludicrous almost comical flavour if it wasn't so serious.

I don't believe we're looking at poor customer service but atrocious employee management.

To Jeff's point - that's not universally true. RyanAir's customer service sucks and they're one of the most profitable low cost airlines around. The concept of air travel as a bus ride on short haul hasn't quite happened. On a bus, you don't care if customer service is poor as long as you get from A to B in one piece more or less on time. That bit the airlines have got pretty much right in the EU so we 'forgive' them more easily.

[vinnie mirchandani]

Dennis, so no transparency via blogs to customers and dumbing down of service to lower our expectations as customers.

Whatever happened to the expression "we never forget the customer has a choice"?

[Chris Selland]

To Jeff's point, I find that these stories are far too frequent with the legacy carriers (Delta, American, United, Northwest, USAir) and seldom occur with the upstarts (Southwest, JetBlue, etc...)

You should cc David Neeleman (JetBlue CEO) on your letter to Grinstein and see who responds more quickly.

It's all about management and culture - the carriers that existed in the pre-Alfred Kahn era simply can't compete. I don't think it's fair to put all the blame on management, because the employee bases within these organizations with their 'I'm just doing my job' attitudes are at least as much to blame.

There's a big story to be told about companies trying to move from regulated to deregulated environments - and I tend to believe it's difficult to impossible to accomplish. Look at the Telcos post-Judge Green.

[Anshu Sharma]

Oh, the miles scandal. It is right up there with Credit Card fees and interest rates. Here are some similarities:

- Make it sound good: "0% APR", "Free travel to Bahamas", "No blackout dates", "Premier/Elite Status" etc.
- We make the rules and have the right to change them: Your APR can change any time. We can change how many miles it takes to go anywhere.

Now the problem is that there is no good guy here. If I had a credit card company I could trust or an airline that would treat me with some dignity, I would 'commit' to them but the business has become too transactional for relationship building.

BTW, just recently I saw an ad where Northwest Airlines will gladly let me get an aisle or window seat for an extra $25!!!

[Chris Herbert]

Hey Vinnie,

No need to write a letter to the CEO of Delta. Just print off your post with comments and send it to him!

Best wishes,

Chris.