Randy Petersen
Tonight is a great night for FlyerTalkers and Happy New Year to you all. We have with us two very special guests to start a new year of live chat with FlyerTalk Live! First of all welcome Christine Pierce, the Director of Loyalty Marketing at Delta Air Lines. She's got quite a resume. She was Director of the Continental OnePass program in the early 1990s when they became a Freddie award winning program and then she went on to run things at the Holiday Inn Priority Club and is responsible for many of the great things that have happened there. Take my word for it she's good at this miles stuff. Also tonight we have Kevin Pinto, the System Manager of SkyMiles and I think I can easily say he's the hardest working guy in the business.
Art234
I would like to see the 72 hour window for Gold upgrades handled like AA does--you can request at the time of reservation but they don't clear until the 72 hour mark-- It would save me the trouble of having to interrupt dinner or something to race to the computer or phone to get an upgrade. Kevin is there any chance of that happening with DL?
Randy Petersen
Looks like we have our first question tonight. Christine or Kevin?
Christine Pierce
Thanks Randy, we're truly glad to be here and to have an opportunity to talk with some of our best customers. This is a great forum and we want to thank you in advance for hosting us tonight.
Randy Petersen
we are very glad to welcome you...Before I forget, I remind you that Christine and Kevin are being very nice to you all tonight. They have brought along 100,000 Delta SkyMiles for me to give away in the Delta SkyMiles Trivia contest. I'll post up four different trivia questions tonight and the first to answer correct wins 25,000 Skymiles! Someone will be going somewhere after this is over.
Kevin Pinto
Art, yes we are currently working on that and hope to have this capability in the near future.
Mikel at WebFlyer
rose1234 submitted this question earlier: We have been saving miles with Delta for over 2 years to get enough for two tickets to Europe. We will purchase two tickets also. We have started six months in advance looking for tickets and there are NONE. We don't have specific cities we want to visit and are very flexible within a 3-week period. Any advice on finding seats?
Christine Pierce
Great question, one that we get asked a lot. Here's a long answer to this very important question. An interesting dynamic occurs in very popular markets like Europe, Hawaii and the Caribbean - as most of these markets are "trip of a life time" destinations - honeymoons, anniversaries and the like. As such, members book award seats as soon as they become available, almost a year in advance. If you are booking your honeymoon, you want to know that you've got a seat. As a result seats aren't available way in advance, but may become available as the flight gets nearer to departure. We've done a lot of analysis on this and have published some tips for our members. For instance, ask to be put on the wait list, look for award seats on one of our SkyMiles partners - check our award tvl trip line, use a SkyChoice award this is kinda of like an unrestricted ticket.
Mikel at WebFlyer
Isabel Finley submitted this question earlier: How long are your frequent flier miles good? Can they be combined with any other airlines?
Kevin Pinto
Isabel, more good questions. The short answer to your first question is forever. All you have to do is have any activity on Delta in a 3-year period. Which is easy to do, e.g. fly on Delta patronize one of our SkyMiles partners, redeem an award, etc. with all the ways there are to earn miles, your miles should never expire.
Randy Petersen
As for the combining....I guess that answer is left pending all this airline consolidation talk...
Christine Pierce
Actually, Kevin why don't you take it.
Randy Petersen
Coming up....Trivia for 25,000 SkyMiles.
Kevin Pinto
Regarding combining miles, while you can't combine miles with another airline, you can earn and redeem miles on any of our 10 SkyMiles airline partners, which will net you the same result.
Randy Petersen
OK, it's time for some fun.....Trivia Question #1: the first one to answer correctly wins 25,000 Delta SkyMiles courtesy of the frequent flyer program of the same name. Here it comes
Randy Petersen
Name two of the five SkyWish core Charities?
Tolarian Wind
united way
markbach
unicef and make a wish foundation
Scooby
save a wish - pga
Track
Red Cross, Big Brothers
TNRoses
Make a Wish
hfly
kristi yamaguci's and the united way
tudorcity
make a wish, united way
Randy Petersen
Congrats tudorcity.....
Randy Petersen
Now before we go onto the next question, let me ask this....
Randy Petersen
Christine and Kevin, could you share with us what was the first thing that crossed your mind when you heard about this SaveSkyMiles.com effort that has come up regarding the SWUs. I realize that may be one of tonights's question and you can answer that whenever you like....but I am curious about this.....
Randy Petersen
It seems to have gotten a lot of attention from the media and other members. These members seem to really have a concern. The first thing that crossed your mind?
Christine Pierce
The first thing that crossed our minds was that it was great that we have customers who are passionate and concerned about the SkyMiles program.
hfly
Kevin and Christine. As I am sure that you know, quite a few of your most valuable customers, including many of us are quite upset at the SWU changes which are happening at Delta. Most of the answers to our questions and concerns have been fobbed off with form letter answers which spin a new reality on the situation. There is no shortage of BizElite international tickets, besides even if there were, you have capacity control programs to deal with this. As a Platinum Medallion member whose wife is a Silver or Gold depending on the year, why should I fly any more than 100,000 miles on DL this year? Why should my wife fly Delta as most of our travel is international? Why are you raising the bar on NAMU's when you claim that the shortage is on international? Who cares that you are making marginally "more upgrade opportunities" when the ones that matter are being taken away? Why would any person living in Europe care to fly your airline if they fly less than 100,000 miles a year? Lastly, all of that heralded rese
Randy Petersen
I guess this is the question I was referring to.....
Christine Pierce
Let us address this in a couple of responses. Reality is that we've been operating at virtually full capacity internationally with BusinessElite. For instance, transatlantic - in the month of June we ran at over 90%. From an airline pov, that's chock o'block full ... leaving members very little opportunity to upgrade. Additionally, with an increasing number of Medallion members and criteria for earning SWUs, there were simply too many upgrades out there to satisfy redemption. We needed to adjust the program so that upgrades were a real and relevant perk that were obtainable and redeemable. So, to address why you should continue to fly on Delta once you've flown over 100k miles - We're looking at our members in a more individual way. Attempting to tailor our program to their needs. For instance, if we see a member is flying heavily internationally, and we know they are out of upgrades, we may send them more, or automatically upgrade them on their next flight, or offer them a bonus unique to them. This may not address all of your SWU questions, but maybe we can take this offline with Randy's help so we can get to other questions.
Randy Petersen
Thanks Christine.....that would have been an easy question to back away from. Next question please...Sounds like the day of MySkyMiles isn't too far away.
Randy Petersen
Now...to more miles and more trivia.
Randy Petersen
Trivia Question #2: the first one to answer correctly wins 25,000 Delta SkyMiles courtesy of the frequent flyer program of the same name. Here it comes
Randy Petersen
Which "More for Your Miles" Auction received the most bids? (multiple choice - choose one answer). A. A Renaissance Cruise to the South Pacific B. A "Meet Michelle Kwan" package C. A Russian Space Adventure D. A "Meet the Power Rangers in Hollywood" package
Tolarian Wind
1
james
d
Spiff
A
Randy Petersen
So we have another winner.....looks like spiff will be going places...congrats and thanks again to Delta for the miles, they don't have to come out of my budget now....
Aron
I've been a DL FF for over 20 yrs. Last 2 Platinum Medallion. Between a bad flu, snow in ATL & the pilot stuff I missed my platinum by 10 segments. Will there be a grace period to requalify? I can't get an answer from anyone.
Randy Petersen
Here's a good question...Christine or Kevin?
Kevin Pinto
Aron, we are looking at cases individually, just go to delta.com and send an email to customer care and your request will be reviewed and an answer will be given within 5 days.
Randy Petersen
Kevin....hasn't Delta extended some elite qualification because of some flight interruptions?
Kevin Pinto
Randy, we have a requalification promotion in place now where members can requalify for 2001 status. As far as flight interruption exceptions, we are looking at this on a case by case basis.
Mikel at WebFlyer
Rssrsvp submitted this question earlier: Why are there expiration dates on segment upgrades? We earned them the same way we earned our miles and they should not expire at the end of the calendar year.
Randy Petersen
Gee, as someone who has 37 upgrades to use I'm even interested in this answer....
Christine Pierce
Another good question. It's partially a capacity issue so that we make sure we have enough FC seats for active members. If we never expired them we would have a very difficult time managing demand. Reality is, that you have up to two years to use them depending on when you earn them. So as you continue to fly with us, you are earning them and burning them at a pretty consistent rate. So Randy, that means you need to keep flying Delta as you have 37 upgrades to use.
Randy Petersen
I can't resist....is that your final answer? Anyway, we're into the next trivia question and giving away another 25,000 Delta SkyMiles. Get ready
Randy Petersen
What new feature of the Delta SkyMiles Credit Card from American Express was launched on October 1, 2000? You have one second to answer this one it's so easy.
Tolarian Wind
dbl miles
Randy Petersen
OK.....i do know this winner. Tolarian Wind wins 25,000 SkyMiles....where are we going?
Randy Petersen
The correct answer was: Always Double Miles, which gives card members double miles on everyday purchases at gas stations, supermarkets, drug stores, home improvement stores, the U.S. post office, with cellular phone bills and with Delta purchases.
Randy Petersen
Our final trivia question, for 25,000 SkyMiles...
Randy Petersen
How many miles must a SkyMiles member have to redeem for a Business Class round-the-world trip with SkyTeam?
rcs85551
220,000
Randy Petersen
We have a winner! rcs85551 has won our final trivia question, with the answer of 220,000 miles for a business class round-the-world trip redemption.
Randy Petersen
Thanks to everyone who showed up and to those of you who didn't but pre-submitted your questions. A special thanks to Christine and Kevin for taking time out of their busy schedules to do this, and for Delta's generous trivia awards.
Due to a sever error through our technology provider, DigiChat, this session is missing some of the final 15 minutes. We have reconstructed these lost minutes based on individual records and backup systems.