Frigging Delta!

This was in today's mail. I am now a Silver Medallion Delta Skymiles member. This means year to date I have flown in excess of 25,000 miles. To be exact I have now flown just slightly in excess of 30,000 miles.

The skymiles thing is really a thing. As an employee of my company we don't get many perks. In fact we tend to get lost in the shuffle. So skymiles is a big deal. Sam is my skymiles guru and advises me about how to get the max miles possible. He just reached Platinum. He is God. At least in the world of skymiles. Otherwise not.

This past flight from Santiago to Atlanta I had 47,000 some odd miles and I knew I would go over 50,000 on the flight home. I got to the ATL airport and checked the Delta website from the blackberry at 6:30 am (yes I told you this is a big freaking deal) and I was at 52,000 some odd miles and I immediately skyped Sam with the official news. But when I got home and checked the site again (just to bask in the glory you understand) I was still at Silver Medallion status. I checked it out a bit more and realized that I was looking at my total miles and not at miles year to date so I am only now silver.

The package that came today was a bit of a downer because of all this. I did get a new card and a key fob card and a luggage tag. But I'm only silver and in the world of skymiles I am still white trash. I need 20,000 miles to make it to gold where upgrades will kick in. I will need to do about 2 more round trips to Santiago to make this or one round trip to Tokyo. My goal for the year is to at least make gold.

All of this is totally selfish for me. It isn't the prestige, which is at best dubious when one is talking skymiles. What I really want is a vacation. A real vacation where I take a week off and I don't stay home doing yardwork or remodeling. I want a week on the beach somewhere and I want to use my miles to pay for the flight. I still need to get back to St. Martin to finish the doomed vacation from 2004. I want soft white sand and eye-blindingly turquoise water and totally buff Belgian beach boys to bring me water with lemon and I want to watch naked imperfect people walking on the beach while I clutch a huge towel around me because I am an American and I want to swim with fucking dolphins and I want to leave the laptop at home for one week and possibly even turn off the blackberry because I DESERVE IT. And I do not want to pay for my flight. That's all I want. Because of vacation time rolled over from last year I have almost 6 weeks of vacation time this year and I can only roll over 2 weeks of it which means I need to take 3+ weeks before December 31 or I will lose it. I just have no idea how this is going to happen.

Sam, if you are reading this I am taking April off. See you in May. April Fool's. Damnit.