Airline Ticket Bait & Switch

I’ve spent a good deal of time on airliners over the past 27 years since I started traveling via air.

My first airline trip was a real whopper—half way around the world to the Philippines from the Dothan, Alabama airport. The trip involved flying from Dothan to San Francisco International Airport, then traveling by bus to Travis Air Force Base where I jumped on a Lockheed C-141 MAC transport plane that flew us to Alaska, then on to Japan, then finally to Subic Bay Philippines. I was in the air nearly 30 hours by the time I arrived at my destination.

Counting time on the ground, in airport lobbies, and a brief stay in a BOQ in Japan, the trip took 2-1/2 days to accomplish. To add insult to injury, they lost my luggage after I had worn the same kaki uniform for all of that time.

Needless to say I survived the Philippines and the return trip.

Today I’m planning my first trip back to the Dothan, Alabama airport since 1978--flying over to visit my mother in mid August. I logged on to the Delta Sky Miles Website to attempt to redeem some frequent flier miles for the trip and learned two things that pissed me off.

The first was that they wanted 50,000 points to make the round trip from Brunswick to the little podunk Dothan airport. Last time I checked, you could fly round trip virtually anywhere in the continental US except possibly New Orleans at Mardi Gras or Key West for 25,000 points round trip. Since I only had about 26000 miles available, I thought that I would just transfer my miles to Pat’s frequent flyer account and at least pay for half of the trip while she used her points to purchase my return ticket.

But nooooooo, I couldn’t do that, because Delta now charges you $10 per 1000 miles transferred and a $25 transfer fee. Moving a measly 26000 miles would cost me $285—more than half the price of the round trip ticket if I paid cash.

I know that Delta is suffering financially and the large backlog of frequent flyer miles represent a large financial liability, but a DEAL is a DEAL. They promised these miles for the past 25 or so years to their passengers in order to build allegiance, but the miles are useless when they start doubling the mileage costs to get a ticket and charge you an arm and a leg to donate them to a friend or family member.

We fly Delta because they are the only airline serving Brunswick and we both have frequent flyer accounts with them, but Southwest and Air Tran operate out of Jacksonville, Florida just an hour away and we will be reviewing our options if Delta keeps up their heavy handed tactics.

With policies like this, is it any wonder that Delta’s looking at bankruptcy?