How this simple mistake cost me 15,000 Delta SkyMiles


It’s hard to imagine that a simple error could cost thousands of points or miles, but that’s exactly what happened to me while booking a flight to Cancun for my friends and me.

I’ve always been diligent about managing my rewards since I’ve heard horror stories of people losing large chunks of their balances through one mistake or another. But nobody’s perfect: I put too much trust in my account to auto-update after a points transfer, and it ended up costing me 15,000 miles.

Here’s what happened and how you can avoid making the same mistake.

The transfer: Moving Membership Rewards to Delta SkyMiles

Two of my friends and I decided to go to Cancun this summer, and I volunteered to book us with points and miles.

At the time, I had close to 200,000 Amex Membership Rewards points, so Delta Air Lines was at the top of my list of airlines to consider, since it’s one of Amex’s transfer partners. I knew I could easily book a few tickets to Cancun and still have a ton of points to spare.

Playa Del Carmen Beach, Mayan Riviera Hotels near Cancun, Mexico
Playa Del Carmen Beach, Cancun, Mexico. YINYANG/GETTY IMAGES

One of my friends wasn’t flexible on our travel dates due to her work schedule, so I kept a close eye on Seats.aero to find the best option for us. Delta turned out to be the cheapest option for our flight to Cancun, perfect luck for me.

In total, I’d need to transfer 69,000 Membership Rewards points to Delta SkyMiles to book this flight from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) to Cancun International Airport (CUN). So, that’s exactly what I did.

Historically, my transfers have been credited to my account immediately. This time, though, the miles didn’t post right away. I made the transfer on a holiday weekend, and I’d heard transfers can sometimes take a couple of days to post, so I waited.

Big mistake.

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Related: Why you should master a few credit card transfer partners, and (most likely) leave the rest behind

The mistake: Waiting too long to contact Delta support

I waited a few days after my transfer to contact Delta support.

My loyalty account balances have always auto-updated after past transfers, so, at the time, I thought Delta’s system was just taking a long time to process my transfer.

In reality, the transfer had posted right after I made it. When I contacted support, a representative confirmed that my updated balance wasn’t showing on my account due to a technical issue on Delta’s side. The fix to see them was simple: log out and back in.

As soon as I logged out and in, the problem was fixed. My 69,000 SkyMiles were available.

Woman talking on the phone
MIXETTO/GETTY IMAGES

I immediately navigated to Delta’s booking page to snag three award tickets, only to find that the flight I’d chosen had gone up in price in the few days since I last checked.

It wasn’t anything jaw-dropping, but it wasn’t a painless increase, either. In total, I had to transfer an additional 15,000 Membership Rewards points to Delta to cover the additional cost.

I’m fortunate to have a significant Membership Rewards balance, thanks in large part to the welcome offers I earned from my American Express® Gold Card and American Express Platinum Card®.

If those 69,000 points were all I had, I would’ve been in a very tough spot. Transfers are always one-way, so I wouldn’t have had the option to use those points for another airline.

Related: I had no rebooking options after my flight was canceled. Here’s how transferable points got me home

The lesson: Always be proactive about contacting support if your transfer isn’t posting

The mistake itself was easy to avoid. I should’ve contacted support after 24 hours, since my previous transfers always posted instantly. Any unexpected delay in your rewards posting is worth contacting support about, just in case there’s a glitch.

Even if nothing’s wrong, take it from me: It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Man makes a phone call while trying to make an online purchase using a credit card and a laptop
KOSAMTU/GETTY IMAGES

This is especially true if you’re using most or all of your rewards balance for a transfer, or if your travel dates are inflexible. Of course, you could always buy additional points or miles if you need more and don’t have any left to transfer. But that can get costly if you need to buy a substantial number of points and miles.

In the end, the best strategy is to contact support if something feels off. Don’t trust that your account balance will display properly.

Related: Don’t fall for this airline customer service scam

Bottom line

In the end, I was able to book the flight for my friends and me. 15,000 SkyMiles didn’t annihilate my rewards balance, but it took enough of a chunk for me to learn an important lesson.

I spent so much time focusing on big picture things like using the right card for certain purchases and monitoring award trackers that I missed something so simple. If you plan to make a transfer to Delta SkyMiles soon, remember to log out of your account and back in after the transfer completes.

Above all else, don’t hesitate to contact your loyalty program’s support if you’re concerned about how long a transfer is taking. If something feels off, it probably is.

Related: 7 mistakes to avoid when redeeming hotel points



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Reporting in NetSuite

NetSuite provides various reporting capabilities that retrieve, analyze, and present real-time business results. Users can run pre-built reports, or they can set their preferences and modify them. Users can also build custom reports in the Report Builder tool. Users who have access to reporting can find this function in the NetSuite Reports tab.

It contains a lot of standard reports with pre-defined data and formatting. It also provides ad-hoc reports in which users can select formatting options. They can set their preferences that change the results of the reports. We also have a Report Snapshot portlet option to view a summary of reports on a dashboard for a selected date or period. Once the reports creation is done, we will get options for printing, emailing, and exporting to .csv, .xls, .doc or .pdf files.

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Report Customization

The most standard and ad hoc reports can be customized using the Report Builder. We can modify the reports to meet specific needs. NetSuite offers a special Financial Report Builder to customize financial statements only. The Report Builder follows a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) format, which means we can view the changes that we made before saving the report.

To create a report, go to the Report Builder and click on ‘Customize’. Click on the ‘More Customization’ option on the new report definition page. We can edit the default columns, filters, and sorting options applied to the report. We can also choose which users are allowed to access the reports by setting permissions. The customization options also depend on the user’s role, permission, and the report that we select.

Managing Reports

Users can manage custom reports by using the Saved Reports page. This is where users can view all the saved reports. We can even edit, view, delete, or change the ownership of reports. We can perform the following functions on the report.

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  • Mass updating reports – This is a unique feature offered by NetSuite, where we can change ownership of a few reports at a time.
  • Mass delete reports – We can select all the reports that we want and delete them at once.
  • Saved reports – All the customed and saved reports can be found under the saved reports section. 

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SuiteAnalytics

It delivers embedded analytics for customers to find out hidden information from data. We can monitor company performance across different departments, subsidiaries, and teams. It provides flexibility to create saved searches and reports, which help to make critical decisions and gain meaningful insight.

Using SuiteAnalytics, we can create workbooks that perform complex data analytics tasks. We can create sophisticated criteria filters by exploring data in real-time visualizations. The workbook also has pivot and chart capabilities with drag and drop functionality. A workbook can be deployed into the NetSuite dashboard as portlets. We can then save, share, or reuse the workbook.

NetSuite also has artificial intelligence and machine learning-based capabilities included within SuitAnalytics, which delivers insights and helps customers make faster and smarter decisions. It can also predict what happens in the future based on historical data. It can also automate routine tasks. It also provides data transparency from the summary level to the transaction level.

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Since NetSuite offers different services through a unified platform, data will be stored across disparate systems. Analysis of this data will be time-consuming and error-prone. NetSuite Business Intelligence provides built-in, real-time dashboards, reporting, and analysis on data integrated across all processes within the Suite platform. It helps is effective decision-making in a reliable and timely manner.

Users can get real-time visibility on issues, trends, and opportunities. We can drill-down to individual transactions. It is very easy to use, as it does not require programming or technical knowledge. The Business Intelligence platform can be accessed via a web browser and mobile device.

Saved Searches

A saved search is a reusable search definition. When we search for something by applying some filters, we get some results. We can save these search options, like advanced search filters and results display with Saved Searches. If the users have ‘Publish Search’ permission, they can share the search results with others. It provides reporting and tracking, which also helps in decision-making.

Users can save the search before defining the search or after the search is run. We can set a list of recipients, so the search results will be sent automatically through email. These emails with search results can be scheduled at a specific time or can send them once the result is updated. Others can go to the search menu and search for these published searches by title.

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Displaying all the reports on a dashboard will be cluttered and difficult to understand for users. So, NetSuite has provided an option to save snapshots called report snapshots. It displays a high-level summary of the selected report results. It also contains the links to the underlying reports. When we don’t have space to show the full report, we can use report snapshots. For instance, we can show the top 5 sales items on the dashboard instead of showing all the items. NetSuite provides both prebuilt and custom snapshots.

Key Performance Indicators

KPIs synthesize raw data in your NetSuite and show the results over time. It helps in breaking down the results of data over time. A KPI dashboard component will show results in a tabular format. We can then drill down into each of these results. We can create custom KPIs through saved searches.

A user can only have one KPI dashboard component on their home screen. We can display the KPI search result as an image through the KPI Meter dashboard component. We can add a maximum of three KPI Meter portlets to a dashboard. NetSuite provides more than 75 KPIs, like revenue trends, sales pipeline trends, etc.

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Workforce analytics helps to monitor, measure, and analyze workforce data. A company can analyze its headcount, hiring, and turnover trends. CFOs can identify talent gaps by monitoring payroll data, tenure, and performance management. HRs and management can make use of these reports to access workforce conditions and plan for employee engagement and retention.

It provides two pages called Headcount Analysis and Turnover Analysis, which shows human resource metrics. It also offers drill-down options to get details on analytics. Both employees and HRs can benefit from tracking and reporting on the company’s benefits plans and costs. It can provide historical analytics, predictive analytics, and prescribed analytics. 

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Conclusion

NetSuite has been increasing its analytical ability by making it more and more powerful. We have covered all the tools that NetSuite provides to create reports. You can use standard reports or easily customize reports according to business needs. It allows analyzing real-time data in any dimension. The NetSuite report layouts can be modified to different presentation formats to highlight critical data. NetSuite also standardizes financial reporting in both internationalization and localization. NetSuite also allows interacting with third-party analytical tools like Orbit analytics, Glew, Sisense, and many more.

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