My Biggest Complaint About Delta Airlines Employees Wasting Everybody’s Time

Recently, I took a flight on Delta Airlines originating from Dulles. When my wife and I checked in, I told the Delta agent that I wanted my frequent flyer miles credited to my Alaska Air Mileage Partner Account. I knew that Delta and Alaska Air were partners, b/c I checked it when I booked the flight.

The agent, in a super nice way, informed me that Alaska was not a Sky Miles Partner, pointed to the sign behind here with some airlines that were partners. She said that “our partners change frequently, Alaska may have been a partner in the past but those are our only partners now (and referred me again to the sign behind her).”

Two other times during the conversation, I suggested that Alaska was a Delta partner, and she said they weren’t (in an incredibly friendly way).

So, she signed me up for a new Delta Sky Miles frequent flyer mile plan. This took a good 10 minutes.

We get on the plane and I look at the In-Flight Magazine and sure enough, it is plastered with evidence that the two were partners, like I suggested to that agent.

When I get off in Atlanta to make a connection, I inquire at the ticket counter, and that Delta Agent says, sure Alaska Air is our partner and you could have credited your Alaska mileage plan with this international flight. The agent said, if the other agent would have just looked at the screen than she would have seen it. It’s right here. So I ask her to credit the rest of my trip to Alaska and she says she can’t. Apparently, once a trip is started you can’t change who the mileage gets credited to. That is, until afterward when I can fax a bunch of crap into this special number. Time wasted to this point = 25 minutes of my time and Delta’s.

So we give up and do some shopping in the terminal. My wife asks me why we don’t ask somebody else at another Delta counter and see what they say. That agent says, sure you can change it now. I’ll do it for you. And it takes her at least 10 minutes of button pushing, but she says it worked. I wont’ truly know until I get home. Heck - she may have messed everything up and deducted miles from my Alaska account.

All in all, i probably waited for 45 minutes and took 30 minutes of Delta agents’ time for this. If the original agent would have just looked at her stupid screen none of this would have happened.

The moral of the story is that, if you’re in customer service and a customer tells you in a polite and seemingly informed way that they know something about your company - three times, you might want to at least check and verify who is right.