Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
The vice president of Skymiles Jeff Robertson was nice enough to send me a survey about what I think about the new #Skymiles2015 program. I will not tell you how I voted but thought you may want to see the slides so if you get the same survey you have time to think about what to say!
So I got 250 miles for sharing what I think about #Skymiles2015. How many ways can I tell you how bad this is Delta and how upset we are. I hope Delta is listening! – René
.
Gold-Platinum-Reserve Delta SkyMiles®
Credit Cards from American Express®
Click HERE for more info
Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
I got one and already sent it back. You have to give them good marks where they’re due. I like that I get priority boarding, sky priority no matter what class of flight I’m on, 100% mileage bonus (for now).
I did go right ahead and let them know that I think it’s a stupid idea for them to make someone like me feel like I’m not valuable to the company. I spend around $10,000 with Delta each year. While that may not be all that much to them, being a hard working 26 year old, I doubt I spend NEAR as much on any other consumer product or service. Is it wise to make a LOYAL customer feel less valuable? There are a lot of “me’s” out there.
I’m pretty confident that my spending will only increase, and I would like for them to let me know, in one way or another, that they would like for me to stay with them.
…and just to clarify–I went back through 2013, and I would have earned about 40k MORE miles if it was under the new program. My biggest problem is not necessarily with the miles and the broken website (which I happily noted in the survey)–it’s with making people feel valuable. It’s what I do for a living (sales). Each one of my clients is treated as if I NEED their business, because at the end of the day I do.
I think it also assumes people are aware of all the changes – I think a lot of FF are still uninformed – like the guy who didn’t realize about the JFK SFO upgrade change!
Got mine and told them the truth and how the 2015 changes will hurt me and that I have been flying less on Delta and more on Alaska in 2014.
Are you allowed to use profanity in the answer?
@smitty06 – not on my blog but to Delta you say what you want 😉
@JohnSD – what airline are you now flying. What city are you based in?
I hope I get one. This new program will greatly reduce the miles I get if I fly delta. Even though I may be just as loyal as ever to delta, this program will be a stab in the back for my continued loyalty.
Let’s not deceive ourselves. Delta knows that this change is going to be wildly unpopular, but that hasn’t stopped them. I see this survey as being part of Delta’s overall plan with several possible purposes:
1. As Shari points out, there may be members that aren’t aware of the change. This survey helps get the news out to everyone. Delta wants to rip off the bandaid quickly, not stretch the agony out over many months.
2. This and future surveys will help Delta gauge how quickly or how slowly the uproar over the changes subsides. It’s entirely possible that they have some revisions in their playbook to ameliorate members if there is enough pushback. The survey helps quantify what is “enough”.
3. Delta management is not dumb. We may not like what they do, but there are cold, hard calculations behind this, and they have a plan. They may make some minor tweaks, but Delta is not going to scrap this effort.
Most large corporations look at dollar cost of flights only. They let travelers keep and accumulate FF miles as a perk. They aren’t going to let people switch to other airlines just because the FF program stinks. Non-frequent flyers won’t care. Delta obviously wants to discourage mileage runners. There may be a few small business people who have the latitude to choose their air carrier and weight FF benefits versus price, but that’s likely a very small segment of the market that Delta is willing to give up – they’re betting they’ll make more money even without the ones that put a higher value on FF perks.
Paraphrasing a book title from a number of years ago about dysfunctional relationships, ask yourself if such a book would apply to you: “Airlines that hate frequent fliers, and the frequent fliers who love them”
They’re probably targeting, because I didn’t get one. Wonder who they are targeting?
The vagueness of the parameters bothered me. Were the questions about the current sky miles program? It seemed they were because later in the questionnaire they ask if you are familiar with the 2015 program. So maybe I got tricked into saying I like the current sky miles program, but I did offer comments about next years plan, and they were not complimentary.
I personally would like to see your answers
If all of us respond in the same overwhelming negative manner perhaps they will take notice.
(No, I don’t believe in Santa Claus…. but I still am glad he brings presents for my kids at Christmas)
It’s not “targeted” per se, this survey’s been send to a random sampling of Medallion members. I don’t say that with insider knowledge, but because of extensive involvement in survey-based research.
I didn’t get this one by the way, but I got a different one that was about transcon travel (NYC > LAX, SFO, SEA) and came with a 500 mile incentive.
The screen grabs don’t seem to indicate, but the comments suggest there was the ability to write your own comments. Correct?
p.s. @ Scott Very well written.
@LarsErik – yes I was so excited about the last screen “type your own comment” that I set to work on that and did not get a screen shot. I did share how upset I am over Skymiles2015!
I am a DM in Seattle and did not get the survey but I did get one last year that earned 2000 miles when completed.
Can’t wait to respond to the FF miles survey. I also use my own e-mail as listed for all three of my kids’ Delta Skymiles accounts, so hopefully I/we may respond to 4 surveys!
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 65
I got the email- so far no survey (waiting with baited breath). I am going to lose big time. I’ve loved being a Delta medallion over the past 15 years and have never ever flown anyone else unless it was a SkyTeam partner. I’m a GM who literally claws his way to maintain GM each year (made PM one or two years) and depends on CC spend to get over the hump. Once of the main reasons I strive for GM is the 100% RDM bonus- that goes away and GM actually fare the worst. My usual 15,424 RDM total on my usual 880 dollar fare goes to 7,040- less than 50%. I fly only discounted coach TATL around 4-6 times per year and I’ve managed to find RT low BE awards once or twice each summer booking months in advance. Also, I’ve had quite a few op ups over the years. Those are probably going away too with the reduction of BE seats and addition of more coach seats. Lately, when I can find a deeply discounted BE fare no more than 2200 I’ll take it if it will get me over the GM hump. Is that why they targeted me for this email? All things considered, it doesn’t pay at all for me to be loyal to Delta anymore but its been a great 15 years gaming the system. I’ll continue to rack up the miles and attain GM again this year for 2015, maybe even making a MR or two to get to PM. Probably after 2015 I’ll buy the cheapest BE fare I can find anywhere and switch my CC spend to the Barclays Arrival card to take some of the bite out of those fares.
I hope they target me for the survey as well so I can tell them what they can do with their new Skymiles Program.
I did not get a survey. However, I have really moved my business to Southwest. I am shooting for the companion pass for my wife for 2015. That means I wont be a Diamond this year and targeting a drop to Gold for 2015. I don’t like the cattle car Southwest seating but I can get an exit row most of the time with the A list program which is adequate. Plus Southwest has added some international flights which I normally redeem with for pleasure trips. Lastly, Southwest actually lets you redeem the miles you earn without spending hours and hours on line trying to get the system to work fairly for its customers