How Can I Get Information About a Specific Delta Promotion?

Dear Tim,

I registered for a Delta promotion for 10,000 bonus miles in any class of service for a trip from Kennedy to Istanbul this fall. The promotion ran from mid-September to mid-December. I have not received my miles and am getting the run around from Delta, which initially claimed it couldn’t find the promotion, and then said that I didn’t qualify. Please advise.

Bravo

Dear Bravo,

The researchers at SmarterTravel.com unearthed a web link to what may be the offer in question. Visit Delta’s website to see if this is the bonus you’re remembering.

In case that is not the promotion, and for others who may find themselves wondering whatever happened to those bonus miles they thought they had qualified for, here are some general thoughts on the common problem of “disappearing promotions.”

In cases where credit for a special offer is denied, the best-case scenario is your having proof that the offer was indeed made, such as a copy of the newsletter where the promotion is mentioned. You’d then fax the documentation to the airline, together with proof that you qualified for it.

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Case closed.

Unfortunately, it sometimes happens that by the time the missing miles are detected, there’s no longer any hard evidence that the promotion ever existed. That doesn’t mean it didn’t exist, only that a resolution won’t be a slam-dunk.

Since the airline has apparently admitted the existence of the offer, you’re well within your rights to ask for specifics. They claim you are ineligible. Why, exactly? You can’t dispute their decision without knowing the basis on which it was made.

Typically, it’s for one of two reasons: The offer was only good for certain fare types (more expensive “unrestricted” fares), or it was only made available to a targeted group of SkyMiles members. In either case, Delta would be the final authority on whether you qualify or not.

But if it were a question of a non-qualifying fare, I’d want to know exactly which fares do and do not qualify, and compare that to the fare actually paid. It is possible that Delta was in error when it judged your fare to be ineligible.

And if it was a targeted promotion, it might be worthwhile escalating the request to the next level to see if there’s any chance for an exception. Accepting your registration would seem to imply that you would indeed receive the bonus miles.

Hope that helps.