Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler - The Mystery of Sky Miles

Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | Airline Operations | The Mystery of Sky Miles

DVA11652
Captain, MD-11
Platinum
OLP

Joined on July 22 2013
50 State Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
Iditarod Club
US Coastal Club
Long Beach Century Club
Quincentenary Club

Twinsburg, OH

545 legs, 1,471.1 hours
6 legs, 8.3 hours online
542 legs, 1,466.7 hours ACARS
3 legs, 3.8 hours event

Posted onPost created on June 20 2024 01:27 ET by Jason Spiskey

Much like the real world counterpart, the SkyMiles program in DVA seems extremely complicated. The amount of SkyMiles awarded seems to change with each flight. Then you have sky miles then sky medallions. SkyMiles seems to be points for the miles you flew in the trip, plus any additional bonuses. Sky Medallions seems to be some grouped number based on sky miles. For example, I flew a couple of shorter flights earning around 1200 sky miles per flight. The Medallion points though were 500 for each trip.

Now when it comes to ranking up, or earning status, there appears to be two ways to do this. One is based on flight legs, the other on total flight distance. However, I noticed that after doing a couple of 4000nm trips, only a couple hundred points were being reduced to reach the next achievement. I have also noticed that according to flight legs, I have already reached gold status, but I am earning points on silver, and my status is still marked as silver. So something in the program is not computing right.

So after all this, if you have made it this far, my questions are:

Is there a glitch in the program, or is this adding up correctly and even though I have the number of flight legs, I do not have the required number of miles (even though on the description, it says "OR, not "AND)
and the second, what do you get for the Sky Miles? I know in the real world, sky miles is what you earn for using your credit card on qualifying purchases and eventually you can apply for reduced or free tickets and medallion points are what you use on ticket purchases and some other qualifying purchases. Those points go toward your silver, gold, platinum, or diamond status. In DVA, we cannot buy tickets, and I do not see my miles to the next status accelerating.

Jason Spiskey (DVA11652)

DVA10641
Assistant Chief Pilot, B757-200
Diamond
OLP

Joined on March 29 2012
50 State Club
Globetrotter
Million Mile Club
US Mountaineer Club
US Coastal Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
Flying Colonel
Online Fifteen Century
Everett 1500 Club
Events Quintuple Century Club

Rosemount, MN USA

1,987 legs, 4,456.2 hours
1,865 legs, 3,929.2 hours online
1,967 legs, 4,422.4 hours ACARS
638 legs, 1,290.5 hours event
18 legs dispatched, 157.2 hours

Posted onPost created on June 21 2024 01:09 ET by Jason Boche

Jason Spiskey wrote:

Much like the real world counterpart, the SkyMiles program in DVA seems extremely complicated. The amount of SkyMiles awarded seems to change with each flight. Then you have sky miles then sky medallions. SkyMiles seems to be points for the miles you flew in the trip, plus any additional bonuses. Sky Medallions seems to be some grouped number based on sky miles. For example, I flew a couple of shorter flights earning around 1200 sky miles per flight. The Medallion points though were 500 for each trip.

Now when it comes to ranking up, or earning status, there appears to be two ways to do this. One is based on flight legs, the other on total flight distance. However, I noticed that after doing a couple of 4000nm trips, only a couple hundred points were being reduced to reach the next achievement. I have also noticed that according to flight legs, I have already reached gold status, but I am earning points on silver, and my status is still marked as silver. So something in the program is not computing right.

So after all this, if you have made it this far, my questions are:

Is there a glitch in the program, or is this adding up correctly and even though I have the number of flight legs, I do not have the required number of miles (even though on the description, it says "OR, not "AND)
and the second, what do you get for the Sky Miles? I know in the real world, sky miles is what you earn for using your credit card on qualifying purchases and eventually you can apply for reduced or free tickets and medallion points are what you use on ticket purchases and some other qualifying purchases. Those points go toward your silver, gold, platinum, or diamond status. In DVA, we cannot buy tickets, and I do not see my miles to the next status accelerating.

As far as ranking among the Skymiles Medallion membership, Flight legs and Medallion Miles are all that count. Period. If you're trying to rank up in the Skymiles Medallion membership, there are two methods: flight legs and medallion miles.

Skymiles, on the other hand, are "given out like candy" with a variety of bonuses tacked on based on how the flight leg was operated, but are not redeemable for anything of value at the time of this writing.

Jason Boche

Assistant Chief Pilot, B757-200

Posted onPost created on June 21 2024 07:03 ET by Jason Spiskey

So it is weird. I have been tracking my flights. The other day I had reached Gold status plus 2 flights. Today, I went back to look at my sky miles and 24 flights are missing. It now says I need 22 more flights to reach Gold. Why would it drop like that?

Jason Spiskey (DVA11652)

DVA043
Senior Captain, MD-11
Platinum
OLP

Joined on June 10 2001
Event Half Century Club
Online Double Century Club
50 State Club
DVA Twenty-Year Anniversary
Everett 1500 Club
Bi-Millennium Club
Four Million Mile Club

"Col. Panic"
Marietta, GA

2,306 legs, 9,290.0 hours
240 legs, 553.9 hours online
1,964 legs, 8,083.1 hours ACARS
75 legs, 196.3 hours event
2,342 legs, 9,424.9 hours total
91 legs dispatched, 66.4 hours

Posted onPost created on June 21 2024 10:44 ET by Luke Kolin

Because I'm trying to fix things. It's not taking rollover miles/legs into account for status upgrades, and because you should have been Gold a while back I cleared things out to allow higher mileage accrual due to the status.

Cheers

Luke Kolin

Senior Captain, MD-11

Posted onPost created on June 21 2024 11:40 ET by Jason Spiskey

Ahh! Thank you for fixing it!

Jason Spiskey (DVA11652)

Posted onPost created on June 21 2024 12:10 ET by Luke Kolin

It's still not fixed yet for you - some other issues have been resolved but I still need to dig into why the automatic upgrade isn't happening.

Cheers

Luke Kolin

Senior Captain, MD-11

Posted onPost created on June 21 2024 21:34 ET by Jason Spiskey

Yea, its saying that I still need to reach the mileage. If you do a long distance flight and ise time accel, do you get less miles. I did a couple of long distance flights and accumulated like 7300 miles, but it only subtracted the medallion miles which only came to 1264 miles.

Jason Spiskey (DVA11652)

DVA4169
Captain, A350-900
Diamond

Joined on March 10 2007
50 State Club
Globetrotter
US Capital Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
Million Mile Club
Toulouse 250 Club
Event Half Century Club
Summer Olympics Club
Nine Century Club
Online Quadruple Century Club

Cincinnati, OH

965 legs, 3,433.8 hours
458 legs, 1,868.3 hours online
963 legs, 3,424.1 hours ACARS
65 legs, 132.8 hours event

Posted onPost created on October 07 2024 07:41 ET by Khary Williams

Is there somewhere that shows the milestones you have to hit to reach 360? I checked the SOP but couldn't find it in there.

Khary Williams

Captain, A350-900

Posted onPost created on October 07 2024 10:44 ET by Luke Kolin

Like its real-world counterpart, 360 is a little mysterious in terms of what it takes. IYKYK wink

Cheers

Luke Kolin

Senior Captain, MD-11

Posted onPost created on October 07 2024 11:45 ET by Luke Kolin

By the way, Khary - welcome to Diamond status.

For anyone who is reading this, there was a bug in how we dealt with rollover miles and legs between 2023 and 2024 that got people stuck at their current status level. I think I've fixed everyone, but if you feel like you should be at a higher status level, just file a Help Desk ticket and I can verify for you.

Cheers

Luke Kolin

Senior Captain, MD-11

Posted onPost created on October 08 2024 09:49 ET by Jason Boche

Khary Williams wrote:

Is there somewhere that shows the milestones you have to hit to reach 360? I checked the SOP but couldn't find it in there.

I'm not a current 360 member but what I will say is that I've looked at the current membership, associated legs and miles, and using napkin math I can sort of piece together the requirements for this elite club. That said, I'm nowhere close to those stats so it's not worth worrying about for me.

Jason Boche

Assistant Chief Pilot, B757-200

DVA6739
Chief Pilot, EMB-120
360°
PPL1
DISPATCHER

Joined on December 09 2008
50 State Club
Globetrotter
US Coastal Club
US Mountaineer Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
Millennium Club
Million Mile Club
Online Millennium Club
Everett 500 Club
DVA Fleet Master

""We live to fly, no matter what""
Rio de Janeiro Brazil

1,467 legs, 3,926.4 hours
1,407 legs, 3,830.7 hours online
1,419 legs, 3,705.2 hours ACARS
41 legs, 92.7 hours event
1,542 legs, 4,195.7 hours total
165 legs dispatched, 468.5 hours

Posted onPost created on October 08 2024 11:32 ET by Bruno Israel

I believe that 360º is up to 1% top members, or anything similar.

Bruno Israel (DVA6739)

Posted onPost created on October 15 2024 14:26 ET by Khary Williams

Jason Boche wrote:

Khary Williams wrote:

Is there somewhere that shows the milestones you have to hit to reach 360? I checked the SOP but couldn't find it in there.

I'm not a current 360 member but what I will say is that I've looked at the current membership, associated legs and miles, and using napkin math I can sort of piece together the requirements for this elite club. That said, I'm nowhere close to those stats so it's not worth worrying about for me.

Yup after I posted this I looked and realized there is just NO way I hit 360 until I retire and can just relax at home and fly close to every day. Those guys are putting in some serious flight time. But I do enjoy being Diamond!

Khary Williams

Captain, A350-900

DVA9959
Senior Captain, B737-800
Gold
OLP, 737-ATP, VFRADV

Joined on July 08 2011
50 State Club
Globetrotter
US Coastal Club
US Mountaineer Club
Commuter Conquest
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
Two Million Mile Club
Online Triple Century Club
Everett Millennium Club
Bi-Millennium Club

"Keep the blue side up."
Phoenix, AZ

2,034 legs, 6,611.0 hours
324 legs, 496.7 hours online
1,906 legs, 6,035.4 hours ACARS
1 legs, 9.2 hours event
4 legs dispatched, 18.4 hours

Posted onPost created on October 20 2024 20:22 ET by Adam Midkiff

I finally hit it this morning. There is no way I would have hit it by number of flights. I qualified by distance. Guess all of those long hauls were worth it.

Adam Midkiff

Senior Captain, B737-800

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