Delta Reinstates Missing Miles!
By Wendy Perrin
Hooray! Remember I wrote about my friend Patti who has spent the past year trying to get Delta to transfer her late husband Lee's 85,039 SkyMiles into her account? After Delta told her that Lee's miles had been purged, she was at wit's end. Well, thanks to excellent advice offered here five days ago by Mark Ashley of Upgrade: Travel Better, Delta has now reinstated the "purged" miles and transferred them into Patti's account.
We can all learn a lesson from this: If an airline's "customer service" department isn't providing such, email the executive in charge of it.
Before everyone rushes off to send angry email to airline execs, here is critical advice.
I base this advice on my three years of resolving Conde Nast Traveler readers' travel problems as the magazine's Ombudsman columnist (1990-93): Be BRIEF and POLITE. By brief, I mean no more than five sentences that make the following points:
1. I apologize for interrupting your day, but I've received
unacceptable treatment by your airline and so far your customer service
department has been unable to resolve the problem.
2. Here is what your airline promised me.
3. Here is what your airline delivered instead.
4. Here is what I believe I am owed as compensation.
5. Thank you for your help.
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Thanks for the advice! Knowing what to put in a complaint email is important. I'll keep this in mind if something similar ever happens to me.
Posted by: tracker1312 | March 16, 2007 at 02:34 PM
So pleased that Delta came through for Patti.
Posted by: TheGlobalTraveller | March 16, 2007 at 08:18 PM
Hi Wendy,
I have a question: I just realized that I am going to have to travel within the next three weeks abroad, and unfortunately my passport is expired. How would I get a new passport quickly? I am located in New York City. Does that help? thanks a lot
Posted by: maryjane | March 28, 2007 at 05:15 PM