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Saturday, February 16, 2013

Leveraging loyalty. It really works on me!

3500 delta points for 15 minutes of work? Use loyalty programs to your advantage!

As David mentions in his triple card churning post, I had an error on my planned ski trip back to Oregon. To make a long story short, I had to change dates on my trip, so I got credit on Delta (along with a $150 change fee—ouch) to reissue my next flight. When I tried to reissue my ticket the agent tried to charge me a $25 phone booking fee. She did not believe that the policy for reissuing tickets waives that fee, and told me to book it online.

So I proceeded to buy my ticket on Delta.com, and for some reason, my credit did not go through but my card got charged for the whole flight. I wrote an email complaint to Delta, and received their response just a week later.



Their letter read something along the lines of:

"You are correct about no phone fee for reissuing flights. We are very sorry for the misunderstanding and taking your valuable time to book the tickets. As a gesture to your loyalty, we have deposited 3,500 miles into your account."

I love good customer service, especially when they show appreciation for the customers.

And then there are others...


This experience completely outshines my US airways situation last year. I had to reschedule a flight (yes... I sometimes suck at planning) and the agent told me I would get a full refund on my round-trip ticket without a change fee, which is surprising since there usually is a change fee involved.

But I never received my round-trip refund.

After emailing their customer service, I actually received a phone call from them. The new agent said, "Sorry, but we have no records of an agent saying what you claim. We cannot help you further."

I may be over the top but I felt like I was just called a liar and I was !$#@ out of luck. I was given no compensation at all, not even miles!

Needless to say I have been avoiding US airways at all costs, even if its substantially cheaper on routes I'm looking for. I will also be remembering Delta for their better customer service. I'm becoming a sucker for these kind of things.

That experience makes me even more sad at the American Airlines-US airways merge that is about to happen.

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