Are you in the zone??

IT has been quiet on my blog, I guess because I have been back on my favorite airline, Delta. Unfortunately, in the last few weeks they slipped up a couple of times. Firstly whena flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems, the gate agents, all six of them just worked through the lines in sequential order. In past such situations Delta was very good at allocating at least one agent to work the frequent flyers as a separate line.

However my most recent hiccup is a little more troubling, as is goes to frequent traveler recognition on a day to day basis. Last Thursday, on my way home out of Dulles, I was not lucky enough to get my upgrade, so had to wait for my zone, which happened to be zone 3. When my zone was called, and I headed down the aisle to my exit row seat as one of the first of the zone 3 group, I was surprised to see that most of the seats around mine were already taken. It looked as if over half the zone 2 group were sitting there.

This begs the question, how does Delta determine zone number, or did the gate agent not police the zone mubers correctly. For zone numbers I expected the difference between zones 2 and 3 would probably be location, i.e. front/back of aircraft or window/aisle seats, or even a combination of both. But as I was sitting in a window seat and the zone two group were seated around me, the location criteria does not seem to apply. This experience makes me wonder if there might be other criteria than efficient loading for determining the zone number for Medallion members. If so, what is it? Last year I collected almost 150,000 (double Platinum) qualification miles, so it is not mileage status.

And if it is not, then what value is there in loyalty, once you achieve the top-level of elite status? It seems that it may be better to then share loyalty with a second airline and build status in more than one program.

So Delta, I am afraid that I have to award you a soduk.