Service Station, by Aaron Skonnard

Pluralsight is giving an iPad to one lucky TechEd attendee

Aaron Skonnard — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 23:10:21 GMT

At Pluralsight, we just released all of our .NET training videos for the iPad. If you’re a subscriber, you can get them now.

Last week at TechEd in New Orleans, we gave away 1000 complimentary subscriptions to the Pluralsight On-Demand! training library. It’s a white plastic card that looks something like this:

If you activate this card by 6/18 (next Friday), you will receive a 2-week subscription to our training library and you’ll be automatically entered to win a brand new 64 GB iPad sitting here on my desk (unopened). The winner will also receive a 1-year Professional subscription to Pluralsight On-Demand!, which makes it possible to fill up your the iPad with our .NET training courses.

We will announce the winner on 6/21. Will we announce it on Twitter (follow @pluralsight) and email the winner.

Don’t forget to activate your card – it only takes a few seconds. Instructions are on the back.

Aaron Skonnard’s TechEd NA 2010 Session Demos

Aaron Skonnard — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:51:57 GMT

TechEd North America 2010 is a wrap. You can grab the demos from both of my sessions here. Hope you enjoyed them.

Feel free to connect with me on Twitter (@skonnard) to stay in touch after the event. Also, I’ll be posting a bunch of pictures from the week to the Pluralsight .NET Training page on Facebook.

One of my favorite experiences from the week: we ran into a street band while walking back to the hotel one night, they were jamming New Orleans style and everyone was watching this little girl dance away. Awesome.

Pluralsight makes virtual training available On-Demand!

Aaron Skonnard — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:11:28 GMT

Pluralsight is excited to announce a new addition to the product line-up: virtual classroom training!

We’ve actually been doing virtual classroom deliveries since the beginning of the company over 6 years ago, but it was only upon request. Now, the virtual classroom is a first-class citizen in our training delivery strategy.

You can learn all about our new addition on the new virtual training landing page:

Our public virtual courses are 5 days long, 3 hours each day. You’ll be assigned homework lab exercises to complete on your own before the next day of class. The first 40 min of each day will be spent reviewing the lab exercises from the previous day. You will cover 10 learning modules during the 5 day course, about 2 modules/day.

This usually equates to 80% of what we cover in our in-person classroom courses.

To attend a virtual course, all you need is a browser and you’ll be up and running within minutes. Any software you need will be installed on-demand. Software setup for labs is described in detail for each course, and varies by course, so the instructor will guide you through the setup on the first day of instruction.

During the course, you’ll develop a relationship with your instructor as you ask your questions and apply what you’re learning to your job. Our instructors are the best in the business, especially in this delivery format.

The most compelling thing about virtual is the price. You can register for any course for $499.

The virtual training experience becomes even more effective when combined with our Pluralsight On-Demand! training subscriptions. With an On-Demand! subscription, you can review course materials and demos between virtual sessions, and get answers to your questions even when the live instructor isn’t there. You can also explore related topics along the way to enhance and deepen your understand, as you prepare for the next day.

Given the synergy between the virtual and On-Demand! training options, we’ve packaged virtual training benefits into some of our On-Demand! subscription plans.

Premium subscriptions will now include 1 virtual training voucher, which will allow them to register for any of our 5-day virtual courses scheduled within their yearly subscription. We are also adding a new Ultimate subscription that comes with a full premium On-Demand! subscription plus 3 virtual training vouchers. This provides an unparalleled value when deciding how to spend your training dollar for the year.

We are very excited about these new additions and the additional value they’ll provide our customers. If you’re at TechEd this week, come by the booth to learn more.

You can begin registering for virtual events today, but the new Ultimate subscription and On-Demand! integration won’t be complete for another month. We’ll make another announcement once it goes live, so stay tuned.

Listen to a short private Webcast where we announced these changes to our customers.

Watch a short promotional video playing at our TechEd booth this week.

Pluralsight + InnerWorkings .NET Training Special

Aaron Skonnard — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:10:50 GMT

Having a hard time choosing between Pluralsight and InnerWorkings? This week at TechEd you don’t have to!

Pluralsight has joined forces with InnerWorkings to provide an amazing .NET training special to attendees this week. Both companies offer best-of-breed .NET training solutions that are very complementary to one another. Pluralsight offers the highest quality On-Demand! training videos on the market while InnerWorkings offers an innovative hands-on learning solution fully integrated with Visual Studio. Combining these two best-of-breed solutions offers you an unparalleled self-paced learning environment for ramping-up on .NET technologies.

All Teched 2010 attendees have the opportunity to purchase a full subscription to both training libraries for the price of one. Simply visit the Pluralsight or InnerWorkings booth this week to register for the offer.

Pluralsight sessions at Teched this week

Aaron Skonnard — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:35:24 GMT

Several members of the Pluralsight technical staff are here in New Orleans this week speaking at TechEd. Below you’ll find a list of their talks for easy reference.

Aaron Skonnard

ASI312 What's New in Windows Communication, 6/9/2010 11:45AM

ASI308 Programming AppFabric: Moving Microsoft .NET to the Cloud, 6/10/2010 3:15PM

Keith Brown

BOF07-DV Claims-Based Identity, 6/10/2010 8:00AM

ASI308 Programming AppFabric: Moving Microsoft .NET to the Cloud, 6/10/2010 3:15PM

Matt Milner

ASI201 Intro to Workflow Services and Windows Server AppFabric, 6/8/2010 1:30PM

BOF11-DV How Are YOU Using Windows Azure?, 6/8/2010 5:00PM

David Starr

BOF02-DV What's Really Happening with Agile Teams in the Wild?, 6/7/2010 2:45PM

BOF08-DV Behavior-Driven Development in the Wild, 6/9/2010 1:30PM

DPR302 Behavior-Driven Development in the Real World, 6/10/2010 1:30PM

In addition to this group, there are several Pluralsight technical contributors (On-Demand! authors) here this week speaking, including Julie Lerman, Kate Gregory, Dan Wahlin, Russ Fustino, and several more who are actively authoring new courses for us right now. All of these folks are amazing speakers – so be sure to check them out.

Pluralsight at TechEd 2010 in NOLA

Aaron Skonnard — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:16:33 GMT

Pluralsight has a strong presence at Teched 2010 in New Orleans this week. About 18 of us are here from Pluralsight, including full time staff, instructors, and On-Demand! authors. Four of us are speaking at the show, including myself, Keith Brown, Matt Milner, and David Starr. If you’re here this week, please come by and say hello. We’d love to meet you in person and get your feedback on the Pluralsight training experience.

We are in booth #2544, which is a little off the beaten path. When you enter the exhibit hall, it’s in the back left corner of the room. We have over 400 cool t-shirts to give away, along with some complimentary On-Demand! subscriptions (good for 2-weeks of free training), some full-year subscriptions that we’re raffling off each day, and details on how you can enter an iPad drawing, which will take place online a week after the event.

We’re also doing a limited time special promotion with InnerWorkings for all TechEd attendees. It provides an amazing deal that allows TechEd attendees to purchase a full training subscription to both of our libraries for the price of one. You’ll need to come by either the Pluralsight or InnerWorkings booth to get registered for the offer before the end of the week. Then you’ll have until the end of the month to act on it.

Pluralsight is making a few exciting product announcements this week, which I’ll write more about in a separate post. To summarize, we’re introducing virtual training (think Live Meeting delivery) as a first class citizen in our product line-up – at an amazing price point I might add - and we’re incorporating virtual training benefits into our On-Demand! subscriptions. We are confident this new addition will drive more value to all Pluralsight customers, and especially On-Demand! subscribers, and increase your training ROI throughout the year.

Finally, Pluralsight is hosting a small customer appreciation event on Wed night in the French quarter. If you’re here, you can get an invite at the Pluralsight booth. Space is limited so come by early in the week.

Have a great TechEd everyone!

Attention all Teched India 2010 attendees!

Aaron Skonnard — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:03:40 GMT

You will find an important paper in your orange attendee bag that you received during registration yesterday. It contains a special offer from Pluralsight & Infragistics:

The offer is for a free 1-month subscription to our Pluralsight On-Demand! .NET training library. This gives you enough time to complete 1 or 2 .NET training courses. However, in order to take advantage of the offer, you have to register for the offer by April 18th, this Sunday! If you wait until after April 18th, the code will still be good for another 2 months, but it will only give you a free 1-week pass to the library.

When talking to attendees at our booth yesterday, it was clear that most attendees hadn’t seen the paper or the offer, so we wanted to make everyone knows about it, and that you don’t throw the paper away. ;-)

Come see us at the booth today if you need another copy of the offer. Also, Pluralsight & Infragistics will be raffling off some prizes today and tomorrow (at the end of the exhibit time). Check in with us today for details.

Hope you’re enjoying Teched India 2010!

Regional Pluralsight On-Demand! pricing for India customers

Aaron Skonnard — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 03:28:47 GMT

We are very excited to announce our latest Pluralsight On-Demand! feature for customers located within India – regional pricing and delivery! Ultimately, this means India-based developers will benefit from a more cost-effective pricing option to access Pluralsight On-Demand! training from within the India region. We are launching the beta program for this regional model during TechEd India 2010, the Visual Studio 2010 Global Launch event held in Bangalore, India this week.

As part of that beta program, all TechEd India 2010 attendees are eligible to receive a free 1-month subscription to Pluralsight On-Demand, no strings attached. Look for the Pluralsight activation code within your attendee materials and activate by April 18, 2010. If you activate after April 18th, the code will give you a free 1-week subscription.

In addition to regional pricing, Pluralsight On-Demand! also now takes advantage of a worldwide content distribution network for regional delivery of our training videos. This new feature will ultimately help our customers all over the world receive the best possible performance including those customers located in the India region (more details here)

I am personally onsite in Bangalore this week for this exciting announcement. I’m looking forward to engaging with our India customers during the event and hope to learn more about their needs this market. If you’re attending TechEd India 2010 this week, come visit me at the Pluralsight/Infragistics booth and say hello. I will be there throughout the show. I’d love the opportunity to talk to you about what you look for in training, and what we can do to make the Pluralsight experience better for you in India. You can follow me on Twitter throughout the week on @skonnard.

Also, if you’re a Microsoft MVP, RD, or local User Group leader in India, be sure to come by the booth and introduce yourself to me. I have something special to give you for helping improve the Microsoft developer community!

You can read the full Pluralsight press release here.

Happy learning.

Pluralsight On-Demand! worldwide content distribution

Aaron Skonnard — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 03:16:41 GMT

We’re excited to announce that Pluralsight On-Demand! now takes advantage of a worldwide content distribution network to deliver our training videos to customers all over the world. This ultimately helps our customers receive the best possible user experience when accessing our training library from locations far from our central servers.

When accessing a video through the Pluralsight On-Demand! website, the request is now routed to the nearest edge-caching server. If that cache location doesn't yet have a copy of that particular video, it requests it from the central servers and immediately begins streaming it to you, caching the video as it goes. If your local cache location already has the video, you'll get it served from the cache location immediately, which is typically much closer than our central servers, depending on where you are located. Hence, as Pluralsight On-Demand! usage grows, subscribers will continue to see the best possible performance when accessing the videos from our library.

Our 14 edge caching servers are located all around the world in the following major cities; Ashburn, VA, Dallas/Fort Worth, TX, Los Angeles, CA, Miami, FL, Newark, NJ, Palo Alto, CA, Seattle, WA, St. Louis, MO, Amsterdam, Dublin, Frankfurt, London, Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo. And there will be more coming in the future.

DevDays 2010 Session Demos & Recordings

Aaron Skonnard — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 06:48:31 GMT

Below you’ll find the demo code for all of my presentations at the Dutch DevDays 2010 event last week. It was a great event, thanks to Arie Leeuwesteijn and the rest of his team. Thanks again for having me!

You can also find many of the DevDays 2010 session recordings on Channel9.

One of my favorite memories from the show was when my laptop decided to apply a Windows Update and reboot right in the middle of one of my presentations – I’m oblivious to it but the smiles gave it away: ;-)

This event had over 2000+ paid attendees this year, which is nearly the size of a large TechEd event, but it’s organized locally by Microsoft DE (Arie and his team). It keeps growing every year and has become one of the most successful regional events I’ve seen. Everything is top notch. The speaker line-up this was nothing short of amazing.

Also, every DevDays attendee received a free 1-week pass to Pluralsight On-Demand! (look for the plastic card in your attendee bag). Don’t forget to activate the card before it expires.

To get a full taste of the event, check out our DevDays 2010 Facebook photo album on the Pluralsight Training page.

Enjoy!

Pluralsight at DevWeek 2010

Aaron Skonnard — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:43:35 GMT

Another great year at DevWeek 2010 – can’t believe the show is already coming to a close. DevWeek is always a great event, organized by Nick Payne and team of Bearpark Publishing. Pluralsight had quite the gang out this year including Fritz Onion, Keith Brown, Jon Fancey, Ian Griffiths, Scott Deadrick, Meagon Marshall, and of course me.

Our technical team delivered a long list of breakout sessions on pre/post-conference workshops, which you can read about on Meagon’s blog. I personally did a workshop plus 6 breakout sessions on primarily Azure, Cloud Computing, and REST. I really enjoyed my sessions this year, mostly because the attendees were so engaged and full of questions, especially the ones on REST yesterday. My favorite talk this year was the one on REST + XHTML + MVC.

Demos: for those of you who attended my sessions, you can download my DevWeek 2010 demos.

On Monday night Nick hosted a speaker’s dinner at a very peculiar and popular London restaurant known for their unique and creative fare (can’t remember the name). Check out the starter … bone marrow on toast … and look at Jeff Richter ready to dig into his main course. ;-)

It was a very unique and entertaining experience to say the least – thanks Nick! We also enjoyed the London fare you might expect (Indian and Thai) over some very nice Pluralsight dinners.

We received a lot of great feedback during the event from attendees all over the UK using Pluralsight On-Demand! Every DevWeek attendee received a free 1-week pass to Pluralsight On-Demand! (look for the white plastic card in your attendee bag) and those who attended my Azure precon received another special gift – you know what to do – make sure you email Meagon if you didn’t catch her at the event.

Our secret? Check out Fritz here playing the siren song of Pluralsight On-Demand! on classical guitar … once you hear the tunes, you just can’t help yourself, so beware.

More photos? Check out the Pluralsight .NET Training Facebook album for DevWeek 2010. Thanks again to Nick, the crew, and all the attendees for another great year!

TechEd Middle East (Dubai) wraps up

Aaron Skonnard — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:06:20 GMT

I’ve really enjoyed my time here in Dubai for the first-ever TechEd Middle East. Pooya Darugar, my track owner from the local Microsoft office, told me that this was actually the first “paid” technical conference to be held in the area, so it was a pretty major undertaking.

They had an excellent turnout, somewhere between 1600-1800 attendees, and even had folks showing up on the last day with money to get in. Suffice it say, the show was a great success.

Amory Somers Vine and the rest of the conference organizers did a fantastic job. And a special thanks to Pooya for doing another first-class job in running my tracs and taking care of us while we were here – I know everyone appreciated it. Kudos to the whole Teched ME team.

I delivered 5 presentations during the show on various connected systems topics and I participated on a panel discussion with Scott Hanselman, Hammad Rajjoub, and Ronald Sunarno on the last day:

SOA201 – Building RESTful Services with WCF
ARC201 – Windows Azure Platform Overview
SOA301 – Service Virtualization
SOA203 – Introducing AppFabric in the Cloud
SOA302 – What’s New in WCF/WF 4.0
IAT304 – Interactive Session: Agile Architect

Demos: you attended any of my sessions, you can download my demos here.

Pluralsight sponsored the show by providing all Teched ME attendees with a free 1-wk pass to the Pluralsight On-Demand! .NET training library. As an attendee, you should have received an activation card with the rest of your materials – don’t forget to activate it right away. If you can’t find the card, just contact us, and we’ll send you one.

Thanks to everyone for a great week – gotta run – just have one extra day in Dubai to do some sight seeing, and eat a little more of the wonderful local food!

MVPs receive free Standard subscription to Pluralsight On-Demand!

Aaron Skonnard — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:47:02 GMT

Last week Pluralsight announced that all Microsoft MVPs now qualify to receive a free 1-year Standard On-Demand! subscription, which provides them full access to our revolutionary .NET training library.

You can read the full announcement here and find out how to get signed-up. Please help us by spreading the word to your MVP colleagues via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and email.

Here are some answers to the most common questions we’ve received about this MVP benefit while processing the first 400 requests that came in last week:

How do I get signed-up?

Simply email mvp-promo@pluralsight.com and provide a link to your active MVP profile on MSDN. Once we’ve validated your request, you’ll receive an activation key with details on how to get signed-up. Please be patient – it can take up to 1 or 2 business days to process these requests.

Is this a one-time or yearly benefit? How much is it worth?

This is a yearly benefit you can receive during each MVP award period. If you’re still an MVP when your current subscription expires, simply email us again with a link to your profile and we’ll renew you.

A full-year Standard subscription normally costs $499/yr per person.

What does this benefit give me?

A Pluralsight On-Demand! Standard subscription gives you online access to our entire library of in-depth training courses, tutorials, and how-to videos, which totals nearly 250 hours of high-quality training videos today – all of it has been authored by folks you trust, many of whom will be attending the MVP Summit this week. We are very interested in your feedback on the quality of the content.

How about Regional Directors (RDs)? Do they also qualify?

Yes, we are also making this offer available to all Microsoft Regional Directors.

Why are we doing this?

We are doing this to give back to the community. Those named “MVP” by Microsoft receive the honor because of their contributions to the Microsoft community at large. They are folks dedicated to giving back and paying it forward. We feel strongly about the value of “community”, especially the Microsoft developer community, and want to do what we can to help it flourish. By giving this benefit to Microsoft MVPs, we are rewarding and assisting those most committed to helping their fellow developers throughout the world. We hope MVPs everywhere will benefit from this valuable learning resource, and that what they learn will help them better serve their community throughout the year.

Do we offer other programs similar to this?

Yes, we offer a similar benefit to INETA User Group leaders, which you can read about here. Again, we believe INETA UG leaders are performing a great service to the community, so we want to help them.

Are you looking for more authors?

Yes, we have an intentionally small team of authors here at Pluralsight and plan to keep it that way. However, we’re always looking for the best and brightest in each area of technology. If you have a passion for teaching and see a gap in our library that you could potentially fill, be sure to drop me a line.

What about my friends and coworkers who aren’t MVPs?

As an MVP, if you’d like to share Pluralsight On-Demand! with your friends or coworkers, we are happy to provide them with free 1-week trials on your behalf. Simply email mvp-promo@pluralsight.com along with a link to your MVP profile and you can request some trial codes to give away.

That about does it. We hope you’ll take advantage of this offer, tell your friends, and let us know what you think about the quality of our On-Demand! training courses. Thank you for all you do.

Happy Learning.

Pluralsight at the MVP Summit 2010

Aaron Skonnard — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:40:39 GMT

Here at Pluralsight, we’re especially excited for the MVP Summit this year. It’s a great opportunity for us to meet-up with the diverse group of brilliant and talented MVPs from all over the world sharing this title. There are several of us from Pluralsight attending this year including myself, Keith Brown, Scott Allen, David Starr, Jon Fancey, and Meagon Marshall (and I’m probably forgetting someone).

We’re especially excited for this year’s Summit because we just announced a special new Pluralsight On-Demand! program for all MVPs throughout the world.

We now offer free 1-year Standard On-Demand! subscriptions to all current MVPs.

The Pluralsight gang will be carrying stacks of activation cards around with us – all you need to do is find one of us and request your activation card. That will give you what you need to sign-up and take advantage of the offer. Each activation request will be validated to ensure that the registrant is indeed a current MVP, so there’s no point in trying to score one for a friend. ;-) Be sure to look for us wearing the Pluralsight On-Demand! “tag cloud” t-shirt – that’s how you can spot us – and get your activation card.

The easiest place to find us this week will be at tonight’s Party with Palermo. If you’re planning to attend the party, you’ll find Meagon (our marketing director) at the entrance. She’ll be handing out activation cards and making it possible to register for a few Pluralsight giveaways at the party – including a new Zune HD packed with Pluralsight On-Demand! training videos. Hope to see you there!

The party will be fun, but don’t worry if you can’t make it tonight. You can simply email mvp-promo@pluralsight.com and provide a link to your MVP profile to request your activation code digitally. Once we process your request, you’ll receive complete activation instructions in the email you get back. Please be patient with us, it can take a business day or two to process these requests.

Pluralsight is also currently looking for a few candidates to join our team of the best and brightest authors/instructors to help build our Pluralsight On-Demand! library in the years ahead. So, if you’re an MVP who loves to teach, be sure to drop me a line, so we can connect during the Summit.

You can follow me (@skonnard) on Twitter or @pluralsight to follow the rest of the gang.

Dear Delta Skymiles, Platinum isn’t what it used to be

Aaron Skonnard — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:17:16 GMT

I’m a long-time frequent flyer with Delta Airlines. I’m a Platinum Medallion, having flown over 750K miles with them alone, and will probably fly another 100K this year, if not more. I’ve stayed loyal to Delta all these years because I used to believe that there was a benefit to doing so.

Not anymore.

Since Delta recently revamped their frequent flyer “Skymiles” program with a bunch of supposed improvements, all I’ve seen is how it’s hurt my experience with the airline. As a frequent flyer, the main benefits I care about are 1) international upgrades and 2) free tickets for my family to use. The recent “improvements” to Delta’s Skymiles program have made both of these benefits almost impossible to use.

In my experience over the last year, there is almost never availability to use Skymiles for a free seat, unless you book at least a year out. Once you’ve realized “there’s no availability”, the agent will say you can spend *double* the miles to get one. That means 50,000 miles for a free domestic ticket, where it used to only cost 25,000. So basically the value of my miles just decreased by 50%. Nice.

My wife and I recently took a trip to New York, which cost us 100,000 miles, and that was coach, mind you. Last year our family took a trip to Cancun, and it cost 360,000 for 6 tickets, again coach. I haven’t been able to get a coach ticket for under 50,000 miles in recent memory.

With international upgrades, it’s even harder to get the benefit. I receive 6 complimentary “system wide upgrade certificates” each year from Delta. One certificate allows me to upgrade a one-way flight from Salt Lake City to London, for example, and given the difference between business class and coach, this is VERY valuable to me. However, in order to use these certificates, first you have to purchase an appropriate “upgradeable fare” or the trip doesn’t qualify. The difference between an “upgradeable fare” and a non-upgradeable fare didn’t used to be huge, but at some point within the last few years, the difference has changed dramatically. Now an upgradeable fare usually costs 2-3x more than the lowest-priced coach fare.

This makes me question why it’s called an “upgrade” because it sure feels like I’m paying for the benefit.

For example, a recent ticket I booked to London cost me $2800 for an “upgradeable fare”. I could have flown coach for only $1000. Another recent ticket I booked for Dubai priced in at $3500 for an “upgradeable fare” and coach only cost $1500. Not sure that’s much of a perk anymore, especially since my own company, not to mention our clients, are not willing to pay those sky-high fares.

The other problem with international upgrades, is that they almost never have availability, which is the same problem as getting a free seat. So even if you *are* willing to pay the exorbitant fares, it’s likely you won’t be able to find an available “upgrade” seat. Again, they must only reserve a few seats on each flight for “upgrades” because it’s very hard to find them. In my opinion, a seat is a seat, and if they have some available, why shouldn’t I be able to cash in on this touted benefit? There have been numerous times over the years where I’ve had to sit in coach, when the plane actually had empty seats in business class, and I qualified for an upgrade. That’s the kind of thing that makes for very unhappy customers.

Because of this reality, I often have to let many of my Platinum system-wide upgrade certificates go unused. I simply can’t find a way to use them. I currently have 4 in hand that expire at the end of Feb, and I most likely won’t be able to redeem them, despite all of the international travel I have coming up. Over the next two months, I’m traveling to Dubai, London, and Amsterdam, and I won’t be able to redeem the certificates I’m holding in my hand because of exorbitant fares or because no “upgrade” seats exist (despite plenty of “regular” seats being available ). Last year was similar, but it seems to be getting worse each year. Ultimately, these certificates have lost most of their real value to me.

Even though they’ve effectively taken away these major benefits I care about, if Delta actually *treated me* like I was special because of my loyalty to the company all of these years, that alone might be enough to keep me as a relatively happy customer. But along with the other changes, I’ve also noticed a steady decrease in customer service, especially relative to their most loyal customers.

Recently, I had a situation where my client booked an international flight for me (through an international travel agency) – they spent over double what they needed to thinking I’d be able to upgrade . Once the information reached me a few weeks later and I contacted Delta about using my certificates to upgrade, I found out that no upgrade seats were available (of course). There were several aspects to this situation that I felt were unique and out of my control, which I explained to Delta hoping for some special consideration. Ultimately my client and I were taking the hit.

My client was paying much more than they needed to and I wasn’t going to be able to use my upgrade benefit on an extremely long flight. Despite the fact that Delta had 8 seats available in business class, they weren’t willing to release one to me. There was no consideration given to my status or the uniqueness of the situation. I spoke to several different Delta agents, and each one dug their heals in further, saying there was nothing they could do for me. These type of responses continue to surprise me. I’m a long-time loyal customer. I will most likely fly over 100K miles this year. And I run a company who hires people to travel around the world and teach people. These points didn’t matter to them.

Conclusion: they simply don’t care about my happiness as one of their most loyal customers over the years. Very short-sighted imo.

So given all of this, why should I stay loyal to Delta moving forward? What’s in it for me? My company and clients will spend much less money by looking for the best opportunity for each trip. There don’t seem to be many tangible perks for me as a Platinum Medallion anymore. And in situations where business class is justifiable, I can probably find business class fares near the levels I’ve been paying for my “upgradeable fares” on Delta. This seems like a much more logical path forward, and Delta has made that clear for me. Thank you, Delta.

As an owner of a company, I’ve taken some notes on how *not* to do things. Once a company stops doing what’s right for their customers, especially their most loyal customers, it’s a very bad sign for the future. One of our stated missions at Pluralsight is to always do what’s best for our customers, and we believe that if we’re true to that, we will always have a successful business. I really hope Delta can turn this one around.