My nephew who travels quite a bit – even more than I did when I was his age – is over for the holidays and was describing his experience using Delta miles. He booked an award ticket, had a confirmation, but closer to departure could not find his reservation. Neither could the Delta agent when he called. So he asked for the reservation to be rebooked. Delta wanted another 40,000 miles and offered him a routing with 3 additional stops which he refused. A protest letter got a lame response even though he sent in proof their reservation system lost his record.
Southwest used to have a brain-dead simple program. Get to 16 credits (roughly 8 round trips) and you got a free trip. Over the last 5 years the program has progressively gotten less generous – and complex, to where you need a PhD to figure out when you can qualify for a free trip.
Was talking to a few bloggers who go to industry events. Everyone agreed with their respective hotel chains If an event organizer pays for the hotel room, most chains do not give us individual room night credit.
Several Starbucks franchises at airports and hotels conveniently do not have scanners where you can use their mobile app which also triggers their frequent drinker count (buy 12, get 1 free). If you buy coffees for a group, their software is not smart enough to give you multiple credits.
On and on. See the pattern here? These are “loyalty” programs meant to encourage frequent customer patronage. But their administrators forget that. The original principle with travel programs was to reward us so we could use awards for our families for our time away from home.
Somehow that has been forgotten. Companies behave as if they are doing you the favor, rather than thanking you for the loyalty. Often it means a competitive disadvantage. So, my nephew is a United 1K and Delta had an opportunity to crack into his budget – which they have blown big time. They may get another shot a few years from now. Maybe.
