My fellow Boarding Area blogger Points, Miles & Martinis does a great job giving us a photo tour of day one of the new international terminal and company CEO has done the rounds on TV as well:

click photo to play video

The other big news for the day is that no one likes paying a higher price for the exact same product. Delta states on their web site about the “Best Fare Guarantee”:

“If you find a lower published fare for the exact same Delta itinerary as the ticket you purchased on delta.com, you have the choice of either receiving credit for the difference in fares and a $100 travel voucher or receive a refund for your ticket. For a claim to be valid under this guarantee, it must satisfy all Terms and Conditions and be submitted in compliance with the Claims Processing procedures.”

As it turns out a reported “IT” glitch “MAY” have cost Delta’s best and most loyal customers, elite Medallion flyers money as you can see in the Star Tribune.

Delta’s company spokesman Paul Skrbec told me this today:

“We have been investing in our website and the technology that supports it for over a year. Recently, we updated our search function as part of a phased approach to improve the site. Shortly after making the updates, we discovered that it produced inconsistent results for logged in and non-logged in customers. We evaluated the situation carefully and rolled back to our prior search function which resolved the issue.”

This all started with a CBS Minnesota piece you can see here.

As an elite Delta flyer, I am accustomed to the unique and somewhat challenging IT system that Delta has in place for trying to book award tickets. We like the fact that Delta gives more award space to elite flyers. Here is the core of this issue; Delta has yet to find out if beyond price checking, if purchased tickets are different over the three week period. So we do not know if medallions have been affected by this and have overpaid for tickets.

It will be up to you, Medallion flyers, to find out if you were bitten by this computer bug, how much it may have cost you, and then try, on a case by case basis,  to get credits back under the best price guarantee. Since the trip has already happened, you can not get money back. But can maybe get an Electronic Travel Voucher for each ticket you were overcharged for, issued to your Skymiles account. These, under the new rules for ETV’s, can only be used one per ticket. If you have two or more instances you find where you were overcharged, you get 2 or more credits that can ONLY be used by you and ONLY one per ticket!

At this point, so much of this is just speculation. This story is far from over so stay tuned elite flyers! – René

One of the big perks about the Delta AMEX cards, all of them, is a buy one, get one free for the taxes coupon you get ($99 with the GOLD Delta Amex). With the Reserve card you can even fly first class this way but the cost is high so I never use mine that way. The paid for ticket earns RDM & MQM’s and the free rider gets nothing. Also, if you do book coach, even as a medallion of any flavor, you have no ability to upgrade. I used my wife’s coupon and changed it so that I was the one earning for this trip. We naturally did not fly direct DTW-MYR-DTW (1272 MQM’s), we flew SBN-DTW-ATL-MYR to rack up (3188) MQM’s round trip.

For years, phone reps could put you on the upgrade list with a companion cert, or the GA could override and get you into first if there was an empty seat. But apparently the Delta IT has had plenty of    free time   to fix this as no one seems to be able to do that anymore and an empty first class seat is better than upgrading a couple of medallions who are redeeming one of these coupons. I think these certificates, like the pay with miles, should be eligible for upgrades. Why not make these redemption’s bottom of the list, but at least make it possible, Delta! (guess they are too busy with the opening of the new international terminal today!)

We did make time to pop into the Skyclub, in B I think, with 3 hops each way they all start to look the same.

Normally a trip to the golf capital of the world would involve a ton of time chasing a little white ball all over lush green fairways, but it just did not work out this time. Plus, I have a fall golf trip with my buddies to Gaylord in August and can not wait to get back to play “The Tribute” again!

I know I sound like a broken record, but gosh I love the haul of Restaurant.com coupons I have from December. One night we went to a sweet local place called the “Hot Fish Club“. They make all the food in house from the great “chips” to the desserts that they bring in a local baker to make that I did not have room for. Our dinner for 3 pre 18% tip was under $15! Crazy good and I would go back in a heartbeat!

After a nice week with family, our return trip was an MD-88 out of MYR, exit row on the leg room was very good. If you have not been to MYR for a while, they are not building a new airport as was the plan for a while, but expanding the current one a bunch!

Next in Atlanta an internationally configured 767-300ER ATL-DTW and we got to try out the EC seats. I may have to rethink 10+ hrs in this kind of seat as it seems smaller than I remember. I will say the first bulkhead row has just about unlimited leg room if you can snag 16 F&G. There were lots of birds in maintenance and I did get a nice shot of DTW coming up from the south.

Then back to the good old CRJ200 to SBN. All went well and more MQM’s in the bank thanks to our AMEX Companion certificate. While I don’t use them every year, I really should as they are a great value in today’s ever climbing cost to fly (when paying for a ticket that is)! – Rene

▲Delta▲ SkyMiles® Credit Card
American Express – RESERVE/PLATINUM/GOLD
Click here for more information

We have our two winners! They are from the comments # 13 LKLY who says:

Too many to count – enough for gold status!

And our E-Mail CONFIRMED subscriber  was #279 rpatel

Congratulations and I will contact you to get the Laptop Backpacks on the way to you!

Keep in mind I have more giveaways to E-Mail readers this month as well as getting the blog sent to your inbox once a day! – Rene

▲Delta▲ SkyMiles® Credit Card
American Express – RESERVE/PLATINUM/GOLD
Click here for more information

They say the first million is the toughest, right? It took our beloved Delta 16 years to carry it’s first one million passengers, the one millionth being Mary Frances Carroll on this date in 1945.

So how long does it take Delta to carry one million passengers nowadays? It sure seems like at least one million were in Atlanta yesterday when I was flying. Think of this, even using 2010 statistics, Delta exceeds it’s one millionth passenger carried before noon on January 3 each year!

I wonder if Ms. Carroll got anything more than a corsage, wings, and a cake? With Skymiles still 36 years until inception, it’s not likely that Million-Miler Status was in the offing! Since annual silver medallion status, complimentary after a flyer reaches this milestone, ain’t all that it used to be maybe she was better off with the cake and flowers!

And how about some fun today. Have you been on a Delta jet yet this year? Leave a comment and tell us how many flights you have taken this year. Even ZERO counts. I will give away TWO of these new  HP Ultra Mobile Backpacks  with DeltaPoints luggage tags on them. One will go to those who comment, one will go to a DeltaPoints.com e-Mail subscriber. – Rene

EDIT: I will pick the winner at 10PM EST – I will be sure to update all comments before then!

▲Delta▲ SkyMiles® Credit Card
American Express – RESERVE/PLATINUM/GOLD
Click here for more information

Sometimes my brain hurts. I would love to know if it is just me that does this. What? Simply this: there is so much I assume everyone else knows. My wife sure tells me enough times that I need to tell her what is in my head. The latest question a reader sent me was:  “where (on the blog) are all the ways to get maximum Delta Skymiles if one wanted to” (say in one year)?

So here, once again, is a post I should have had up for a long time. Some caveats and a request not to flame me in comments. I am not saying that all these ways are the best use of the points. There are often transfer bonus deals that could result in more value for the points. This is to show all the ways to score MAX Delta Skymiles in just one year. All the cards below have no first year annual fee other than the Platinum business card, $450, but you do get up to $300 in credits back in incidentals and GOES rebate and you get Skyclub access free as well. Many of the cards have $5000 in spend needed to get the bonus points so keep that in mind too.

If you over one year applied for these cards you would get almost 200,000 Skymiles.

Application round one in January

Delta Gold Skymiles card  HERE
AMEX Platinum business card HERE
Earn 60,500 miles after spend

Application round two in April

SPG AMEX personal card HERE
SPG Business card HERE
Earn 60,000 points after spend that can be sent to Delta to earn 75,000 (SPG give you 5,000 bonus Skymiles when you send 20,000. You would want to send 3 batches of 20,000 points each ) Note your spend requirement is $5000 per card so you could switch for the Delta Gold Business below and do the SPG business card next round.

Application round three in August

AMEX Gold Premier personal card HERE
Delta Gold Business card HERE
Earn 57,500 points after spend

The net all in result is 60,500+75,000+57,500 = 193,000 Skymiles in less than one year! Also note this leaves you just 7,000 Skymiles shy of 2 free low level tickets to Europe in Business class. There are many many ways talked about in the blog to pick up those few points missing to make this happen all in just one year to take your next European vacation in style! – Rene

▲Delta▲ SkyMiles® Credit Card
American Express – RESERVE/PLATINUM/GOLD
Click here for more information

One of my favorite Boarding Area bloggers to read each day is Frequent Miler. He and I have talked now and then and I love how his mind works. Good or bad, he is brave, and tries things. Tries to make things work. If not, it costs a little but it’s worth the hunt. Fun. But sometimes his steps get my mind going as I now start to think of everything I do in ways like this:

“If I do this for step one, and then that for step two, I will earn 5000x points for step three!”

OK so maybe I am exaggerating just a tiny bit, but you get my point. It is the same with the cursed day I was taught Opportunity Cost in school. Every day of my life since then has been different. No matter what I do, I could be doing something else. It even haunts me when on vacation as I could be earning points doing something. And when earning points, I could enjoying them on vacation! AGGGGGGGGG.

If you had never know about opportunity cost before, I am sorry for ruining your life. But, in the spirit of Frequent Miler, here are some idea’s that hit me when buying some gift cards this week at Office Depot for 5x points on my INK BOLD card. First, I will use these gift cards to buy Walmart Gift cards, instead of my Delta AMEX, for shopping at SAMS CLUB to get max value in points.

Also, this week I talked about the fact that you can redeem, for now, 100 Coke Rewards points for $20 off a SW Air flight. A good deal if you have 100 Coke Rewards points. If you drink Coke products anyway, you can buy a 24 pack at Staples for $11.99 (obviously not the best price in the world). Staples is a office supply store. So, if you use your INK BOLD, you can earn 10x points on the purchase via the Ultimate Rewards shopping site and even get free S&H.

If you buy 5 of the 24 packs you will earn 100 Coke Rewards points worth your $20 for SW Air. The result. You spent $59.95-$20(SW AIR)-$7.50(UR points value)=$32.45 for 120 cans of Coke! If you have a Staples coupon it could cost you even less and maybe match the sale price most places have Coke for each week.

So I hope I’ve got you thinking now too and have a fun weekend earning and burning points everyone! – Rene

◘Chase INK BOLD
50,000
point Ultimate Rewards card
5x Points on Office Supplys
Click here for more information

There are so many things we just “do” when it comes to points and miles. But life is hectic and it is sometimes easy to forget the little things that can mean a ton. Let me give you some examples from Delta Air Lines since that is our foucs. In March there was a targeted promotion that said:

FLY EIGHT SEGMENTS TO BEGIN EARNING A
75% LOYALTY MILEAGE BONUS

Were you able to sign up for it? Did you even check? So, please look at these posts about:

• Promotions on Delta.com  HERE
• Skybonus and promotions going on there  HERE
• Check your credit score often FREE  HERE
• Call for a retention bonus before a yearly card fee comes up  HERE
• Go over your checklist before you fly  HERE
• Read your fellow readers Top Tips and Q&A – good stuff  HERE
• Have someone you know NEW to the FF game have them look HERE
• Need to look for best airfare use Matrix Airfare Search
• Never let a AMEX free companion cert expire HERE

And last but not least, feel free to e-Mail me if you get stuck or need some help. I may not have all the answers, but I can most of the time point you in the right direction to help out! – Rene

Æ- American Express Premier Rewards
25,000 points Gold Card
3X points on airfare
2X points on gas and groceries!

Tonight’s winner is – Bruce who says:

“Free for first and elite members. It would make them stand apart. They need to set the bar higher.”

Congratulation’s and a big thanks for all your input it is much appreciated – Rene

▲Delta▲ SkyMiles® Credit Card
American Express – RESERVE/PLATINUM/GOLD
Click here for more information

I love my GoGo. I loved the free SWAG bag GoGo sent me to giveaway on the blog last month and it was fun to get posts on the blog from readers using the free use coupons! There have been some who have been very critical of the performance of the GoGo service. But if you e-mail them about your experience, most will either get credit for another session or a refund as we should keep in mind this is a new and growing company as I blogged about before.

But on to my question about WiFi in general. Do you expect free WiFi? If so, where? Via Google translate, this Italian town has free WiFi all over the town. How kool! I think most of us expect free WiFi in coffee shops and other restaurants nowadays. What about hotels? There was a good piece on CNN last month talking about just this. Many hotel programs offer free WiFi to their elite guests but this can vary by property.

In the days before everyone living had a cell phone, hotels printed money when you had to use the phone in your room. Now, unless calling the front desk, very few would ever use a room phone for outside calls. Why would you? Most phones today can access the Internet and with outstanding apps like the one I talked about here, there is no need to ever pay for web access for your laptop or tablet. So I see hotels soon being expected to offer free good quality and fast high speed Internet as part of the price as much as sheets and towels or you will find another location to stay.

Back to airlines and our Delta jets. WiFi is free for all sorts of services. Will top level elites like Diamonds or Platinum medallion flyers ever get free access when flying?  I already hear frequent flyers complain that when they are flying other airlines they will not have access to the web. Think of the marketing windfall to offer the top elites free access to the web in the Skyclubs that they get into for free, and seamlessly onto the airplane as well. Work will never need to stop. This will happen one day.

So what do you think. Should Wifi be free everywhere? You tell me what you think about the above for a chance to win (no more gogo swag) some Delta and Deltapoints SWAG today! – Rene

Æ- American Express Premier Rewards
25,000 points Gold Card
3X points on airfare
2X points on gas and groceries!

I have said how much I love living where I do. The middle is just nice. I have EZ access to the “Windy City” for Stay-cations whenever a point breaks room is found. I can fly out of SBN, AZO, FWA, GRR, IND, MDW, ORD & DTW all within a 3 hr drive. I could go on and on, but you can not all move here to the great Midwest!

But if you live in MSP, you may be starting to miss the glory days of MSP. Let me ask you a few questions.

• First, what has been going on since 2010? Look HERE.
•  And what has Delta been doing since then about the size of the jets going in and out of MSP since 2010? Look HERE.
•  And since Delta has not been buying any new planes for a while, can you tell me what type of plane Delta is buying right now? Look HERE.
• Last question. If a plane is small, noisy and very old, then our airline would like to keep this as quiet as possible right? Look HERE on the Delta blog.

Of course, you celebrate the bird. Now I do like the MD’s as long as I am not in the back. I like the 3+2 seating so neither my wife or I have to have the middle seat. They are running this ship from ATL-MYR where my mom-in-law lives and I love it over a CRJ (and never again an ATR)!

But back to MSP. Like real-estate you are location location location. Unless you are going to Europe, Asia, Hawaii or Mexico, you had better get used to more MD’s and CRJ’s! Just be happy you have birds at all as readers in CVG would love to have the size issues you now have to deal with.

At least you have one of the best airports in the world to enjoy before you fly! (does that help?) – Rene

Æ- American Express Premier Rewards
25,000 points Gold Card
3X points on airfare
2X points on gas and groceries!

Congratulations #27 Dave!

I will e-Mail you the $20 SW Air code soon.

And the runner up for the 10 Coke Rewards Point code is #4 Steve!

I will e-Mail you soon as well.

Thanks everyone for reading the blog! – Rene

Æ- American Express Premier Rewards
25,000 points Gold Card
3X points on airfare
2X points on gas and groceries!