Delta dot com sucks

Today is my last day before I head off for the bone marrow harvest surgery.  The wife and I are flying out in the morning, so anything that needs to be squared away has to be done today.

One of those things is checking in for our flight.  Delta is good about letting you know to check in for your flight, but they totally suck at actually letting you check in like you would at the airport.

When I got the ticket information from the travel agency my handler uses, which is the same agency that is used for pretty much all governor travel, I noticed there were some things that needed fixing.  The first thing was they had me in the wrong hotel.  Now I know I should care since somebody else is picking up the tab, but I asked nicely to stay at a specific property.....a property that happens to be the cheapest on their list.  This time I was put at a hotel that is just "OK" and at the same price.  No big deal, I can get that switched in about 2 minutes since I'm still Platinum with that chain.  None of my frequent traveler information in associated with this trip, so I was going to be calling anyway to get that information synced.  In addition to the hotel I had to get my flight squared away.

This is the begging of the normal suck for Delta flying.  I am only a Gold member in Delta's frequent flyer program (SkyMiles), but quite often that is enough to get upgraded.  When I associate my frequent flyer number with the upcoming trip my companion and I are supposed to be automatically put in for an upgrade request.  Of course, this doesn't happen so I manually request the upgrade.  At this point Carolyn and I aren't even sitting together.  When I try to change seat assignments I get a message saying that it isn't possible and any changes will have to be done at the hospital.

Fun

Fast forward to this morning when I am able to check in for tomorrow's flight.  Upgrades are dished out 3 days in advance of the flight for Gold members and their companions, so if it was available I should already have been upgraded.  When I check in it asks if I would like to get on the upgrade list.  WTFO?!!!!  I already went through this crap a couple weeks ago.  Yes, put us on the *&%#$! list...again.  At this point the Silver medallion folks have already been upgraded.  What the hell is the point of earning a rewards level if you don't get to access the perks?!  This time when I ask for the upgrade it only puts me on the list, not my companion.  EPIC FAIL

You know for a 45' flight this isn't a huge deal, but this isn't the first time this has happened.  When we flew back to the Midwest to attend a friend's memorial service we went through this exact same issue.  Every time I got online we were dumped off of the upgrade list and it asked me if we wanted to be upgraded.

More important to me than getting the upgrade, which should be an earned perk, is getting to sit next to my wife on the flight, which is freakin common sense.  Earlier I wasn't allowed to change seat selections, but this time it let me change my seat..once.  I can get an empty exit row seat, but not the seat I want, which also shows empty.  The system won't let me move the seat again and it won't let me change my wife's seat at all.  WTF?  Oh, for some reason the system had dumped her frequent flyer number.  She's on the ticket with me and they recognize I'm a Gold Medallion SkyMiles member....at least for now, but I can't move my companion's seat?  I enter in her SkyMiles number and *poof* I'm magically able to not only change her seat, but mine as well and we finally can sit together.

At this point I've had to log into my account three times to fix the simplest of issues. I never had this sort of problem with United.com  EPIC FAIL


EDIT: I should note that if you complain a bit on Twitter then @DeltaAssist will often try to help.  I'll give credit where credit is due to these Tweeps, BUT instead of trying to fix things after they are a problem, pull your head out of your ass and provide a decent system to begin with!  My Twitter response:

I can understand the frustration. You are sitting together, & you're currently #1 on the upgrade list.  ^WG

Really....thanks for making us #1 on a list today, when we should have been some other number two days ago when they already gave out those seats!  At least we are sitting together.  I think I would have/might break my foot off in someone's ass if they can't get that simple thing done.  Then the whole donation would be for naught since I doubt they'd go through the surgery if I had just gone through a traumatic foot breaking-off injury.