Are Delta’s mileage offers discriminatory?

by Christopher Elliott on March 2, 2009

That’s the intriguing question raised by David Dawson, who monitors two Delta Medallion accounts — his and his wife’s — from one e-mail address.

Both of them are at the same level and have roughly the same number of miles in their accounts. But here’s the offer he received:

outlook

And here’s the one his wife got:

outlook2

He wonders …

Wonder why mine is worth double the miles of the one for my wife? I guess equal pay for equal work doesn’t apply at Delta Skymiles. Then again, why should one expect anything less out of the airline world?

I’m not sure what to make of the offer, either.

Are there any mileage experts with some insights into why Delta would make such different offers to passengers with such similar profiles?

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Tagged as: Delta Air Lines, Frequent Flier Miles, frequent flyer program

  • Jeff

    Do we really know if these two accounts are similar? They have a similar number of miles in their accounts, but maybe one has earned more than the other over the life of the account and the accounts are now equal because of redemptions. Do they have same Medallion status (silver, gold, platinum)? Does one of them have more activity recently than the other? Does one of them book more discounted tickets than the other? Does one of them have a Delta-branded credit card and not the other?

    I think all of these things can contribute to the difference and only if all of these factors show no differences would the question be legit.

  • Jeff Linder

    One possibility might be the relative length and class of flights used to accomplish that level? I.e. if one person flies mainly business class longer haul, as opposed to short hops in coach?

  • Corey

    This isn’t surprising to me. Delta probably uses a business intelligence package to shift through its passenger data to tailor it’s promotions. Much of this stuff doesn’t make any sense unless you know the algorithm being used. I gave up trying to figure this stuff out last year when my friend was offered Hilton Diamond status just one year after he was offered Gold Status. He had two stays at Hampton Inns during the course of that year. I, on the other hand, was six stays short of earning my diamond status, spent thousands of dollars more than he did, and was offered nothing.

  • Beth

    And could be marketing – Delta is seeing if the response to 1500 miles is as good as the response to 3000 miles. If so, then they won’t bother offering 3000 miles next time.

  • Carrie Charney

    Has Mr. Dawson thought to call Delta to find out?

  • Rusty

    I rarely fly Delta, and have never had more than 32,000 miles in my account. I recently made my only redemption and now have roughly 6200 miles in my account. However, the offer I received was also for 3000 miles. My guess us that Beth is correct and that customers were split into either 1500 mile or 3000 mile offers.

  • The Good Doctor

    Clear isn’t available at all airports yet, so if Mr. Dawson primarily flew through airports that didn’t have the Clear system, Delta had to offer him an additional 1500 mile incentive to sign up for a service he might rarely use. Delta tried a similar come-on when I flew out of SFO. I asked them why should I sign up for a service that isn’t even available at my home airports?

  • Janice Jackson

    I’m not surprised. I monitored my bosses’ Skymiles account as part of my job of booking his travel. He was a high net worth client and he received really great “bonus miles” offers from Delta even though he only earned 25000-50000 “points” per year. My husband, who has flown over 1 million miles with Delta in the last 15 years, NEVER received such offers. That was our clue to not make Delta a priority when booking air travel.

  • lewis.lipps

    So why not just cancel both memberships in the rewards or whatever program it is? They are enticing loyalty out of you, and giving you nothing in return. Just cancel your membership in the rewards program. You will feel better.

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