Legacy carrier Delta Air Lines has long been known to set the standard for treating its passengers with respect and helping them elevate their travel experience.
For starters, the airline offers some of the most lavish premium products of any US airline, and it also maintains an extensive Sky Club lounge network which allows passengers to rest, relax, and recharge during their journeys.
Furthermore, Delta has been known to incentivize passenger loyalty through its reward program SkyMiles, through which it offers credit cards that are available due to a cobranded partnership with American Express.
The carrier rewards frequent fliers by providing them with elite status benefits and giving them extra perks while they fly, but it also notably consoles them if something goes wrong in their journey.
While shaping passenger opinion by offering benefits and perks that improve their experience may be the more traditional way to drive customer loyalty, assisting passengers when something has gone wrong in their journey can also be an effective way to improve how they view the carrier.
Delta Air Lines, for example, will always assist in rebooking passengers when a delay or cancelation in their previous flight leads them to miss a connection, and it will often even provide hotel access and meal vouchers to those who are stranded for extended periods.
When passengers arrive at their destination on a long journey, virtually the last thing that they want to do is sit around and wait for their checked baggage for an extended period.
Almost nothing will be more frustrating to a passenger than having to sit around and wait for half an hour for checked bags to come out on the carousel after they have been sitting on a twelve-hour flight and desperately want to go home.
As a result, Delta Air Lines offers a unique reward program that provides passengers with SkyMiles as compensation for checked bags that do not arrive on time.
Let's take a deeper look at everything this unique promotion has to offer passengers, and how they can take advantage of this Delta offering when their checked bags take too long to come out on the claim.
The Delta Air Lines "Bags on Time" policy comes from a long-standing commitment to providing passengers with reliable and efficient baggage services every time they choose to take to the skies with the airline.
The airline says that this is why they back up their checked bags with a unique guarantee, which is described as follows on the airline website:
"If your checked bag doesn't arrive at the carousel in 20 minutes or less after any domestic flight, you are eligible to receive 2,500 bonus miles."
To claim these bonus miles, passengers are directed to the Delta Air Lines website, where a form is available that asks passengers for details including personal identification information, SkyMiles numbers, flight numbers, and travel dates.
The carrier notes that this form must be completed within three days of a flight's arrival for a valid claim to be filed.
Passengers have been known to submit these forms even before their aircraft has arrived, something the website strictly instructs against.
The airline also notes that passengers must be active SkyMIles members at the time of travel to be eligible for this promotion and requests for bonus miles for multiple different flights must be submitted separately.
The airline indicates that it may take up to two weeks for bonus miles to appear in your account. As a result, passengers will have some sense of solace that Delta apologizes for its service when baggage takes far too long to make its way out to the carousel.
Passengers need to remember that there are a few conditions within the fine print that determine eligibility for this offer.
For starters, the offer is only valid for domestic flights within the United States and Puerto Rico that are both marketed and operated by Delta Air Lines and Delta Connection affiliates.
The airline notes that itineraries including codeshare flights are eligible as long as the last flight is a domestic service operated by Delta or Delta Connection.
Passengers are limited to one claim per flight itinerary (including round trips) and the time in which baggage took to reach the claim will be measured as that elapsed between the aircraft's door being open and the first bag arriving at the claim belt.
The airline was quick to note that oversized baggage and specialty items (like skis or golf clubs) are ineligible for this promotion. The airline also reserves the right to deny claims for any baggage that does not meet the airline's standards.
At the end of the day, the Bags on Time policy allows Delta to best serve its passengers, and it incentivizes the carrier to continue delivering baggage to customers at the claim in an efficient manner.
Should they fail to do so, passengers have a clear channel to express their frustration and receive compensation.
While mildly onerous, the restrictions that the carrier applies to this policy make some sense.
The carrier cannot account for international flights, where third parties often do the majority of baggage handling.
