Nervous Northwest frequent fliers get new assurances from Delta — sorta
With the merger between Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines pretty much a done deal, two of the top questions that frequent fliers will probably ask are “what will happen to my miles?” and “will my status remain intact?”
A letter from Northwest in April said that “WorldPerks miles and Elite program status will be unaffected by this merger.” Once the deal is consummated and the combined airlines take on the Delta name, frequent fliers “can look forward to being a part of the world’s largest frequent flyer program with expanded benefits.”
But members of WorldPerks seem to have hit a little turbulence.
In a letter to one of WorldPerks’ Gold members, Northwest said that, while statuses and memberships remain “safe”, WorldPerks frequent fliers should not “expect upgrades when traveling on Delta” because they’re still working out the details, so to speak.
The letter does not go into detail, only that “we are working to provide upgrades when traveling on Delta. We expect to complete this work in fourth quarter 2008.”
My guess is they are still negotiating with Delta whether the original Medallion members will get preferential treatment over WorldPerks members as far as upgrades are concerned or how the WorldPerks statuses will translate over to the Medallion levels.
They’ve gotten over the hurdle of getting the two airlines’ pilots to approve the merger. Can they get past the frequent fliers? It depends on what they decide to do.
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I suspect that the reason you won’t see upgrades on DL doesn’t have anything to do with the original Medallion members but rather trying to combine the two reservation systems and all of the programming that has to be done to bring NWA up to speed on Delta’s system. NWA has not used industry standards for many of their formats in the various reservation systems for years and from what I understand that is a major stumbling block on bringing the systems together.