Delta SkyMiles Platinum and Diamond members get to choose from a variety of benefits. One Diamond member – with around half a million qualifying miles and over $50,000 in spending this year – was thrilled to be able to gift Gold status to two people.
He’s always gifted Gold to his wife. United just gives a spouse of a million miler the same status that the member has. But he wanted his wife to be reasonably well cared for when she travels without him. Now that he had the option to gift a second Gold, he offered it to his father. Taking care of family is one of the most important things that a brand can do, and it’s why Hyatt’s ‘Guest of Honor’ benefit is so special.
When he went to enter account information for his wife and his father, he got an error that one person already had the status so he couldn’t proceed (his wife’s status hadn’t yet expired). So he removed his wife from the submission, and processed the upgrade for his father, figuring he’d going back later and process his wife’s Gold status.
But it turns out that the page can only be submitted once, and submitted just one Gold upgrade ‘uses’ them both – even though it doesn’t say that anywhere on the submission page.
- After waiting three hours on hold for Customer Care, he gave up and wrote in. After two months, Delta informed him that the case was closed with no update.
- He submitted another case, but it went into the either. So a couple of weeks later he submitted a third case. That prompted a phone call. The agent explained that he screwed up and he was out of luck.
- It’s in the choice benefits terms and conditions that he wasn’t even able to find on his own. The list of choice benefits, where gifting status is listing, don’t flag to look for them.
All he’s asking is for some kind of warning – bold, or a popup – on the screen for submitting two elite status nominations that if you only submit one you can’t go back and submit the other later.
It is amazing to me that Delta cannot or will not accommodate him on this:
Wow, we really didn’t make this clear or easy, and the way we set this up means you lost out on a benefit of your status. Let’s fix this for you, it really doesn’t cost us anything extra, and you’ll appreciate that and continue to be a good customer.
He’s not looking for anything extra, and he’s a customer who easily earns Diamond status even under Delta’s disastrous qualifying rules that they walked back, exceeding them by 50%.
How hard would it be not to make the moment of benefit redemption feel like a gotcha?
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December 21, 2023 at 03:04AM
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When Loyalty Backfires: How Delta's Elite Status Gift Became a Customer Care Nightmare - View from the Wing
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