I am sorry I have nothing but bad news to share from Delta this year and the hits keep on coming. This is yet one more blow to those who have already, like me, earned our 2016 elite status with Delta.
In the past, we could select our earn year’s Choice Benefits gift within weeks or even days of earning our status – not this year. We must wait until 1MARCH15 when likely we will see the 2016 Medallion program announced from Delta in all its glory.
Here is why this is such bad news. Delta has shown such absolute distaste and disgust to loyal medallions this year and a propensity to cut benefits and perks that I will be beyond shocked if they do not GUT the Choice Benefit choices as well this year (and will be happy to blog that I was wrong if they don’t cut).
I posted last month that I was on the fence if I should go ahead and make my selection NOW a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush, but Delta has taken that choice away from me.
I asked Delta why this delay, when all the years before this was not the case, and was told it is a “technology limitation” that is affecting us this year. SHOCKING!
So Delta can make an award page that is SO good (well no, not really) that it “necessitated” the removal of the award charts from Delta.com, yet they cannot flip a switch to allow us to pick an earned perk per the rules on Delta.com?
Folks, if I tried, I could not make this stuff up. – René
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They are straight out lying to us now… if they weren’t before…
Not that it matters because they could just take it away later anyways.
Why are we even still with Delta at this point?
Please make cuts to the choice benefits for next year. I would LOVE to be able to use the rest of the year building up my status on AA, or at least start crediting EVERYTHING to Alaska. I’m so close to status matching to AA I can taste it.
I would actually gladly cancel my current tickets at a loss and rebook them. I have a little over 25,000 but-in-seat miles booked to fly on DL right now and that only takes me through the next month and a half. Give. Me. A. Reason.
I just threw up a little. PM in a couple weeks or less. DM soon after if I choose to keep spending on my Reserves (my personal, my business plus AU on wife’s personal). I’m afraid AMEX just lost quite a bit of legit spend after Delta pulled this one out of its rear. Wonder who wants my spend? Chase, US Bank or Citi?
Love the results of the poll. Delta is really The World’s Most Trusted Airline – trusted to win the Bernard L. Madoff award for business integrity and customer respect.
Rene, you are an intelligent person, why would you continue a relationship with a vendor that lies, cheats, insults and steals from you?
Sadly, something must be working right for DL. I am a (stupid and stuck-feeling) PM on track for DM first time ever and I haven’t gotten an upgrade on a single leg this year on routes I hit 75%+ on last year. A big chunk of my travel is to Johannesburg and I so wanted the upgrade choice benefit for those 15 hours. On March 1 DL will probably swap those out for 4 HOOU coupons.
Does delta just keep rolling out these changes seemingly every single day so that we forget the downgrade they did yesterday? It’s like what is said about the news cycle: wait out today because something will happen tomorrow that will throw your sorry news off the front page. Surely the delta execs are going to run out of things to downgrade before March 1st . . . Nope, doubt it.
The choice benefits opened up and all appear to be there. I am noticing two things though, that strike me as odd.
First of all, I am only being offered Diamond Selection. I do not see the Platinum Selection which I was always able to get in the past. Am I being penalized for going straight to Diamond? Did this happen to others?
Also, when trying to gift gold again to the same person I have nominated in past years, thereby extending it until January 31st 2017, it won’t let me because that’s already the status associated with that Skymiles account. In the rules it says something which I haven’t noticed before:
“Gifting Gold or Silver Medallion Status to a recipient: Gifted Medallion status can only be gifted to a recipient who currently has no Medallion status or status below the gifted level.”
Is this a new limitation? I don’t remember this happening before. So far, I have not finalized my selections.
Champagne problems, I know, but still, it’s annoying.
@Marc – See this post: http://deltapoints.boardingarea.com/2015/03/01/2016-skymiles-year-is-here-just-what-are-the-changes-you-need-to-know/