I was trying to buy a plane ticket to visit my dad’s grave on his first birthday since he died.
Instead I found out Delta Air Lines expired an e-credit which I was going to use to offset the cost and represented real money I paid them in the past.
I asked them to extend the expiration date a few weeks to make it easier for me to pay tribute to my dad, for whom I am still grieving. They refused.
Yes, this is a bit of a consumer tirade, but it’s also a case study. How much is not only my business, but my goodwill worth?
Considering that they were willing to provide me that voucher value three weeks ago, my years of loyalty, the emotional weight of the request, and my pending travel (five figures in Delta tickets for a family vacation, already booked), they chose to risk that I’d not only become an ex-customer, but would share my sense of betrayal with my network of followers across multiple social media sites.
What do you think? Did Delta make the right call for their business?