Let me start by saying that I love Delta Skymiles and every year I do everything I possibly can do earn status with the airline. However, recently the airline has been slacking in some departments. From delays and cancellation of flights to losing customer bags.
I get it a lot of airlines are struggling to adjust and accommodate the many customers who are now trying to get their trips in while the prices of travel are relatively cheap. However, in my opinion more attention to customers needs to be given.
Here's how my story started
One of my very good friends recently got married and had a destination wedding. For those of you not familiar, a destination wedding is a wedding where you travel to a particular destination (typically outside of your country) and you get married to your significant other.
The wedding was in Portugal. As I previously mentioned Delta is one of my favorite airlines and I love flying Delta whenever the I am given the chance, not only because it gives me Skymiles, but also because other U.S. airlines in my opinion do not compare. I will likely do another post soon about how I would personally rank the top airlines, so stay tuned.
I booked my flight to Portugal through Delta and I had several issues from the get go! My initial flight was delayed for over an hour because there wasn't anyone available to come service the bathrooms. Given that this was a long flight (over 7 hours), you would definitely want to have the bathrooms empty so that the passengers onboard can use them.
As a result of this one hour delay I missed my connecting flight. Delta automatically put me on the next available flight and even gave me an economy plus seat, which was nice. However, I still had to wait at my connecting airport for over 5 hours which was definitely inconvenient.
Delta did not reach out to apologize!
Enough ranting here's my real issue
Since I love Skymiles, I decided to book my hotel stay in Portugal through Delta Hotels. I compared the price between Expedia, Hotels.com and Booking.com and Delta surprisingly had lower prices, at times for some hotels the prices were the same. So given that I was not losing any money, I figured I would book through Delta Hotels and earn Skymiles as a bonus.
Or so I thought.
On Delta's Terms & Conditions, there is a statement that "SkyMiles number should be provided at the time of booking" so I was sure to provide this number so I can earn my points.
Another statement Delta makes is to "allow up to 8 weeks after completion of eligible stay for miles to be deposited in SkyMiles account." That's great and all, but I booked my hotel in April of 2022 and completed my stay in the first week of May 2022. It's now Aug 9, 2022 and I have still not received a credit for my miles.
So what next?
Delta does offer mileage credit. I have previously used this option when I somehow did not earn miles for purchases I made via the Delta Skymiles Shopping portal. So I submitted a request after the 8 weeks went by, which if my calculations are correct should be right around mid July. So far I have no received any response back from Delta besides the typical "At this time we are experiencing extremely high volume and will take longer than normal."
So my only option at this point is to wait and hope that someone will either read my complaint about the missing points and award them to me or simply never get them.
In the past I did use the Delta Hotels and I did book a hotel and I also never received my points, but I can't remember if I entered my Skymiles account number or not, so I never blamed Delta for not awarding me the points because I thought it was my mistake.
However, now that I am basically in the same situation and I have still not received my Skymiles, I am suspicious and having second thoughts about that event also.
Bottom line
I think from now on I will no longer be relying on Delta Hotels for hotel bookings and will likely explore other avenues when I need to book a hotel unless of course they are offering lower prices on their hotel bookings. The hassle to get those pesky Skymiles seems too much.
What are your thoughts? Which booking sites do you use? Let us know in the comments below, we'd love to read your opinions.
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