A Delta Air Lines customer service agent has shared a heartwarming message with a passenger after giving away a free upgrade to First Class, seemingly just because the passenger was polite and friendly.
The passenger shared a screenshot of the message from the customer service representative, which said: “You’ve been amazing! You’re such a great customer to work with and easily my favorite one today!”
Customer Service Rep upgraded me and then said this
byu/glasseyeblower indelta
The heartwarming message continued: “Please do me a favor to stay happy and positive what ever this life could bring! I wish you the best and stay safe! Thanks for contacting Delta!”
Sharing the message on the social media site Reddit, the passenger explained that he had no frequent flyer status with Delta and had only just opened a Delta American Express Gold card because he intended to start flying with the Atlanta-based carrier more.
Despite the fact that he had no status with Delta and hadn’t even clocked up any mileage with the airline, he still managed to wrangle a free upgrade after contacting Delta’s customer service web chat.
The passenger, who goes by the username ‘glassblower,’ says he had booked flights with Delta in Economy but saw that First Class upgrades were being sold for $60 each way.
Unfortunately, he didn’t immediately snap up the offer, and when he went to upgrade the following day, the price tripled. Instead, the passenger tried to upgrade to Comfort Plus for a much more reasonable price of $15 per flight.
When he paid for this upgrade, however, he noticed that the price for First Class had decreased. Unable to book the upgrade online, the passenger reached out to Delta’s customer service agents for assistance, and despite some initial confusion, he managed to win the agent over.
The chat took a little time, but eventually, the passenger scored big.
“A few minutes later the rep comes back and tells me they have upgraded me to exactly what I had asked and that they were going to be emailing me an updated itinerary,” the passenger wrote. “I asked how much it would cost and they said all prices and fees were already covered.”
“I’m flying first class for my first flight ever and even got a voucher back for the price that I originally paid to upgrade to C+,” the passenger continued.
It’s probably fair to say that this passenger has been very lucky, although it just goes to show that being polite and friendly can go a very long way!
As a “behind the scenes” airline employee, I watch the interaction between passengers and agents when I’m at the airport. As a pilot instructor, I am keenly aware of how our pilots should interact with our customers. Our policy is to encourage our pilots to be polite and thank our customers at every opportunity. Without them…there is NO paycheck. When passengers, even with a problem, approach the agents, being polite to the agents can go a long way to getting a problem resolved. Sometimes the problem is caused by the passenger. Sometimes the problem is caused by the airline. We want to get the problem fixed as much as the passenger does. This customer did the right thing and managed to talk to an agent who noticed the problem and the passenger’s attitude. Hopefully the passenger will contact Delta’s customer service people and pass the name to them. I’m sure that Delta will take notice and reward the agent for great service. Maybe, too, other airlines will see this act of kindness and improve their customer relations.