Does Delta Know What a Customer Is?

They were rude? I have to admit I didn't read the whole letter.. I
quickly lost interest.. but to me.. it sounds like you weren't the
nicest customer ever. You mentioned that you didn't bring the
confirmation number. You should always bring that, no matter if you
think they can look it up or not.

Well, the service was bad, but he had every right to defend himself
and the company if you called them stupid, I am sure if they called
you stupid referred to "stupid" customers, then you would do the same
even if they were not talking about you personally.

A stupid, stupid process? You can't use the same adjective twice in
describing something.

Is the only way to fly!! IMHO

This entire process does sound entirely rediculous. I think your
complaint is very valid, however there's no need to make a request for
reimbursement. They don't really owe you a full refund for the tickets
for any reason. You should have just left that off. If they really
wanted to win you back, they'd probably offer you something for your
inconvenience, but now you probably won't get anything because you
demanded compensation.

Delta sucks. I thought so 27 years ago, the first time I flew with
them. I made my return home on them, as well, because I didn't have a
choice (I was 15 and didn't buy the ticket), and those were the 2 most
miserable flights of my life.
And that's saying something when you consider that I had to fly on a
Military Airlift Command (MAC) flight with 400 other people (mostly
families with kids under 7) from Germany to Philadelphia. That flight
was first class fun compared to the Delta experience.

Do you know what Delta stands for? Doesn't Even Leave The Airport.

I agree that Delta sucks. I've had several problems with that airline
even though I've been happy with all other airlines I've used. I don't
even consider Delta when I have to fly these days...

That being said, I wouldn't have told the employee on the phone that I
wasn't talking to HIM. It's pretty rude to be on the phone with
someone and start talking to someone else...especially when your
talking is complaining about the person you are on the phone with! The
guy on the phone didn't make the rules or send you to make the call.
Treating employees poorly will only encouarge them not to help you.

OK,

While I think Tracy and the others hit most of the "finer points" of
your letter, there was one other thing I wanted to point out.

You had a voucher. You didn't say who the voucher came from, but I am
guessing it wasn't Delta. It stands to reason that if you were
getting $200 off your tickets, there was probably some verification
needed before they could appropriately process it.

This explains the "special" phone call and the need for you to be AT
the airport to pick up the tickets - not to mention the delay in
righting your credit card for the discounted amount. They can't just
take your word for it and more than likely the regular reservation
system probably was not equipped to make an adjustment like that.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, nothing in life is 100%
free. Now, I know this will not be a very popular stance for me to
take, but you have to expect that when you get a significant discount
off your travel arrangements, you're going to have to jump through at
least a few hoops.

It sucks, for sure, but that's the price YOU pay for the benefit of
saving yourself some money (kind of like sitting through time share
presentations in order to get a "free vacation")

& are we to understand that you've decided to take another carrier on
your April 2007 vacation or is your demand that they refund your money
on both tickets basically your way of getting a free flight out of
Delta without directly asking for it?

1. Your letter is long winded
2. You were already ticked off when you found out that you had to go
to the air port to pick up your ticket, so your attitude did not help
the situation.
3. The counter agents, and phone agents did not get together and think
up this policy, they are simply doing their job.
4. I think that if you went to get your tickets with a better attitude
then you would have had a better experience.

You are lucky. My ex husband got thrown off a Delta flight and was
refused to be allowed to fly on any of their planes...for much less.
Didnt stop them from sending his luggage on across the country
though.

I HATE Delta and will never, EVER fly with them. We did a lot of
flying about 7 years ago and we had a lot of issues with them when we
used them. Never again. I will walk before I get on another Delta
plane. I was happy when I heard they might go out of business but it
didnt happen. Too bad. Thats what they deserve. They DONT care a THING
about their customers.

Is it just me, or does this letter just reek of attitude?

for 200 dollars off, do what they ask and stop whining. sheesh. why
didnt you have the confirmation number? they give it to you for a
reason, to help them locate what they need to find. They dont tell you
the number to waste breath. Whether or not you think the process is
stupid doesnt make a difference. It's the process. Get over it

I understand that making travel arrangements with a large company can
often be a frustrating experience. I also understand that in some of
the most negative, histrionic letters there can be a valid complaint
or a valuable suggestion. Your bit of wisdom seems to be that the
ticketing process you went through was "stupid". You caould have
enlightened Delta in a manner that would have made a company rep more
likely to respond. Instead, you added so much angry detail that I
think any complaint you may have had was buried.

With that said, if I were the CSR who heard your abuse over the
telephone, I would have hung up too. I suspect that you weren't
surprised when the CSR overheard you since you were still on the
phone. Which may have been your object. I have found that lots of
people tend to vent their frustrations with a business, a CSR, a
friend, whomever, by talking about their views within earshot of their
target.

The CSR was well within his rights to "defend" himself--or explain the
policies and what he needed from you. Tom-a-to, to-mah-to. The CSR
isn't a punching bag and doesn't have to listen to abusive langauge
about his work whether it's intended for his ears or not.

The fact that you had to repeat your unsatisfactory experience to the
supervisor isn't a sign of disrespect. How can a supervisor properly
evaluate what happened unless you tell him? CSR are neither oniscient
nor psychic.

To me, it sounds as though when you found one thing that bothered you,
being referred to the Delta Direct phone, you went looking for more
stuff to be angry about. I am not surprised that you weren't met with
hearts and flowers by the staff. I would be very eager to get you out
of my hair and would be very reluctant to do so by letting you get
your way.

::Sigh::

Okay. When reading this response, please bear in mind that, as a
corporate travel agent, I deal with Delta every day, all day. Mainly
because I'm based in one of Delta's hub cities. I don't like Delta.
And STILL, this letter makes my teeth itch!

But I digress.

It sounds to me like you showed up at the counter, with major
attitude, right off the bat. The ticket agent directed you toward the
phone, because (stupid or not) that's the rule. Calling the rule
stupid (twice-lol) doesn't do anything but frustrate you, in the end.
Why was it such a big deal? You don't say there was a long line at the
'special phone', so who cares?

You picked up the phone and was disconnected, while the agent watched.
Again, so what? What was he supposed to do? Turn cartwheels or
entertain you in some way?

The agent spoke in a 'pedantic' tone? Again, so what? He's just doing
his job, and speaking in a slow, deliberate manner is part of his
job.

Oh, and the part about you not thinking you 'needed' the confirmation
number, that he should be able to 'access it in the database'? Do you
have any idea how many reservations are in their system on any given
day? Thousands - literally. I don't think it's too much to ask for you
to provide them with something as simple as a confirmation number.

My favorite part: Where you turned to your husband and complained
about their system. And then had the utter NERVE to get upset because
he heard you and defended himself? Unbelieveable. You knew darned well
that you were doing this to get a 'rise' out of the agent. And then
got mad when he defended himself! Honestly, if I knew his name...I'd
call and congratulate him!

You told the counter agents what you thought of the process? LOL - as
if they have any control over it. I'm sure they were laughing their
butts off when you left and praising God that you were gone.


The only, and I do mean ONLY valid complaint here is the fact that you
were charged full price after having gone to the airport. That, I
agree, should not have happened.

Additonally, please explain how you feel you're due a 'full refund of
your tickets'? For your trouble? Inconvenience? Rude employees? Gas?
Let me guess. All of the above, right?

Yeah, good luck with that.

This whole process sound fairly convoluated to me, but you state:

The agent on the "special" phone heard my remards to my husband, and
he started to defend himself. I told him that I was not talking to
him. I was, in fact, talking to my husband.

The agent then told me that he "didn't have to take this," and that I
was "welcome to call back."

This was very rude on your part....they weren't the only ones here
being inappropriate. I wonder if this played into the later rudeness
you encountered.

It could be that Delta needed them to go to the airport in order to
use the voucher. I've had a couple of airlines do that although most
have since updated their systems to accomodate vouchers on-line.
Sometimes they insist they need the physical voucher in hand before
they will issue tickets. It is an antiquated system, to be sure, but
I'm guessing that's why the trip to airport was necessary rather than
the OP wanting paper tickets.

If I'm wrong here, the Op should consider trying e-tickets, etc. It's
a whole lot easier.

The whole process seems terribly cumbersome to me. I certainly
wouldn't be pleased with the process or the attitude. However, I'm
not sure that a full refund, and use of the tickets is appropriate.
They should make some gesture of good will, but a full refund isn't
likely.

It sounds like in the end everything was resolved. The two main
issues it seems as if you had were the process that it took to receive
your tickets and the rude employees.

Although the process does seem inefficiant, I fail to see how this was
your only choice of action. First, you could have reserved your
ticket online and requested e-ticket. Second, I believe they could
have mailed you a ticket (unless your trip was within a week or two of
your booking. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Since you chose to pick up paper tickets, you had to drive to the
airport to do so. Calling on the "special" phones seems a little
unreasonable, but I'm sure that it is so they can free up the ticket
agents time for travelers traveling out on flights that day.

What I can never understand is that many people on Planetfeedback
write letters accusing employees of being "rude". They do this
without actually explaining what the employee said that was so rude.
Typically, because it wasn't what they said, but rather their tone.
Don't you think that it is possible that the employees are just trying
to do their jobs and are sick of customers complaining about the
process? They probably hear it all day long. (They probably dislike
the process as much as you do.) Instead of writing a letter that
accuses the employees of being rude and the whole process of being
stupid, why not write a letter giving suggestions on how you think
they could improve their process?

I've missed the part where you describe the employees' rudeness.
However, it does seem to me that they tried to do something for you.
As far as the process being "stupid" it doesn't seem unreasonable to
me. You already had to go to the airport. Why not, while you're
there, take care of the phone call? I can think of a number of
reasons they might do that. But in any case employees always have to
support the process they're required to use, whether it's stupid or
not. That's how they avoid becoming ex-employees.

Forgetting to have the confirmation number ready and forgetting to
give them the voucher seem to have played large roles in the bad
experience you had, and those are things that you could have
remembered.

If it's refundable tickets, then by all means they should issue a
refund for you. You deserve the same respect as anybody else.