Delta Closes SkyMiles Loophole

10 days ago Delta devalued its SkyMiles loyalty program further by raising the price of partner awards without notice. But it left an odd loophole that could be used to book awards at the old price. That loophole is now closed.

The proposition was simple: add a Delta segment to any partner award and the new higher price did not apply.

For example:

• Los Angeles (LAX) to Taipei (TPE) on China Airlines = 95K miles in business class
• San Francisco (SFO) to LAX  on Delta + LAX to TPE on China Airlines = 80K miles in business class

or

• JFK to London (LHR) on Virgin American = 85K miles in business class
• Boston (BOS) to JFK on Delta + JFK to LHR (SVO) on Virgin Atlantic = 70K miles in business class

Not surprisingly, that loophole made no sense and has been corrected. Try to replicate that and you get the new higher pricing–

or

Short Segments on Partners Not Increasing Price

If there is any silver lining to this, it is that the changes could have been even worse. For example, adding an intra-region connecting flight on a partner does not jack up the award price if the overwater segment is on Delta.

For example, fly Delta to Amsterdam than KLM to London and you’ll still pay 70K for a low-level award:

Fly Delta to Shanghai and connect on China Eastern to Bangkok and you’ll pay 80K (the old price) and not the new 95K partner award price.

So at least there is that.

CONCLUSION

Is it any surprise that Delta can quickly clean up customer-friendly website glitches but when it comes to customer-friendly moves its like Waiting for Godot…?