YYZC2

Am I the only one Delta seems to want to foist unsolicited Skymiles upon?

Yesterday I traveled on a DL ticket purchased on DL.com.

Outbound on NW, inbound on DL, all on the same day.

For the sake of saving a few keystrokes, I plugged in my DL account number on DL.com before making the purchase, but later added my preferred account number (CO) on the PNR over the phone.

When I checked in with NW, all my boarding passes (NW and DL) printed out with the correct program number on them. However, when I got my DL BPs reprinted, they spat out with the original DL account number on them. When I asked the agent if I could get them corrected, she told me not to worry - the CO number was in there (I know, I know - )... indeed, she showed me the PNR and there was my CO account number, plain as day, with bold ***ELITE PLUS*** notation next to it. The DL number was further down in the PNR. I expressed my skepticism and to her credit she punched awway at the keyboard trying to make things right, but two reprints of the BP could not shake the DL number.

Today, I see the DL segments have posted to my little-used DL account as I kind of expected... but so have the NW segments.

Why would the NW segments post to DL when the BPs clearly say CO?

Is this a DL.com problem? This is the first ticket I ever bought on DL.com and I have never had this problem before.

Thanks for any info.

clarence5ybr

Actually, it goes both ways...at the start of the year, I had miles for a DL RT that I wanted to go to DL credited to NW. In my experience, enterining a FF# other than the one you actually want to use is opening up a big can of worms. Sometimes it works out, but often it can leave you out of luck.

I have learned the hard way that no matter what an agent says, no matter if your preferred FF# is 'in the record', if the FF# you want to use doesn't print out on your BP, you won't get the miles credited to that account. I think the system is set up such that you can't split miles on different flight legs between different FF programs, which is why everything went to DL even though your NW BPs had the CO# on them.

You can try contacting DL, but I don't think you'll have any luck. They have a pretty firm policy that once miles are credited to a program, they can't be moved. DL.com is bad in that you can't enter a partner's FF# until OLCI--if you use DL.com again and want to use your CO#, just leave the FF# blank, and call in after you've booked the ticket to have a phone rep add the CO#; they can also pick preferred seats for you at that time.

aldeen

its the easiest thing in the world to fix. adding and removing ff #'s is simple. its just randomly used. so most agents mite not know it.

jims66

Not sure with Delta, but I had a similar situation on Northwest before -- my DL number was in the record, but my miles went to NW.

I wrote their customer care line and with a couple of days the miles were deleted and I WAS able to get them credited to Delta.

Just wanted to let you know that some airlines CAN make it happen.

ComairMan

IIRC Deltamatic will always use DL's number, if present in the PNR.

This means that even though you entered CO's, Deltamatic will override it to theirs,
simply because it is present. At that point someone at the airport will have to manually remove the DL number which will bump the OALs to active.

gary_nj

I had a similar situation last year... with a bit of a twist because Korean was involved... I made the reservation by phone with Delta (because it was mixed DL and KE coded flights), and made the terrible mistake of keying in my SkyMiles number at the beginning of the phone call because I figured I would potentially get a better agent.

I figured that the DL number would get into the record, but I would just fix it to my preferred CO number later. Well, for some reason the KE folks just could not make the change on DL-coded, KE-operated flights... It was as though the information came from DL to KE with the reservation and there was nothing KE could do (even though several of them really tried). (The change was easy for them on KE-coded flights... the problem was only those with DL flight numbers.)

Anyway, I was really pretty upset, because the itinerary was selected so I could earn CO miles... And when I saw miles credit to my SkyMiles account, I figured there was little I could do... But fortunately, a bunch of phone calls and letters finally got the miles deleted from SkyMiles and moved to CO. So, it can be done... but not easily. And I learned that I never, ever mention a frequent flyer number if I don't intend to use that one for my credit on that flight.

srodr

I learned long ago to avoid ever giving an account number unless it is definitely the one that you want credited. I fly Delta a lot and always credit it to my NW account (for the elite bonus) even though I have a Skymiles account that all my credit card points go into. So every Delta ticket I buy, I have to make sure that I am not signed into my Skymiles account, and then I have to remember to add my NW number later, either at check-in or by phone. Yes, it takes longer to enter all the information each time. But it is the only way to make sure that Delta doesn't screw up the miles.

YYZC2

That's a great insight, thanks. Is the removal hard to do? It really seemed to vex the GA I spoke with. Any pointers?

Thanks!

YYZC2

I've been around the block a few times and have flown several million miles. I have never heard of "preferential" crediting before I booked this first (and possibly last) Delta ticket.

I've dealt with split points/status credit, I've given the wrong number before, but I've never had to specify where I did not want the miles to go to, and I certainly have not ever had my BPs read correctly and the miles post somewhere completely different. I've had them not post at all, but that's a different story.