Lava Hot Springs’ history worth mentioning too

It’s a shame that Michele Bigley (“Spontaneity Can Be So Much Fun,” July 5) didn’t expand her enjoyment of Lava Hot Springs to take the opportunity to relate a history lesson to her children. The Idaho section of the Oregon Trail runs right through Lava Hot Springs and was noted in several pioneer journals. What an opportunity missed to teach some American history: Bigley mentioned the fun of the hot pools but not the history that surrounds them.

Kenn Morris

Los Angeles

Airline loyalty

I find the notion that fliers will become less loyal if they are allowed to mix miles and cash to be counterintuitive and hypocritical [“Can Miles and Cash Mix?” by Catharine Hamm, July 5]. As a frequent business flier, my husband has flown Delta for 25 years — that is loyalty.

However, recent decisions have reduced mileage earnings and have made it difficult to redeem miles, and the costs are so high that his company often won’t let him fly Delta. This does not inspire loyalty, but the mix of cash and miles may.

If the airline truly wants loyalty from the business traveler it courts, it would make more mileage seats available at reasonable levels and pull back on some of its decisions that make it difficult to earn miles. Instead, the carrier promotes loyalty by saying that a particular point level gets a flier a free checked bag, something that until recently was free. Its position is both illogical and hypocritical.

Elizabeth Triana

Mission Viejo

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Hamm hit the nail on the head. Airline loyalty should work both ways.

As a tour operator, I’ve been booking my groups on Delta or other SkyTeam alliance airlines so we can accrue as many SkyMiles as possible in one program.

Since Delta changed to miles based on ticket price and SkyMiles status, miles earned have been reduced.

I began booking my ticket separately to try to keep my Gold status.

Won’t happen.

I’ve flown 48,488 miles on trips to Dubai, Kenya and Iceland this year, yet received credit for only 17,918 miles (37%) based on a combined economy ticket cost of $5,078. Dollars spent and miles credited to attain the next level keep increasing; credit for actual miles-flown miles keeps decreasing.

When I complained to customer service about these changes, their response was, “We’re making our program more exclusive.”

For whom? The 1%?

Delta feels no loyalty to me, so why should I be loyal to it?

Michele Burgess

Huntington Beach

Complaint Dept.

Pardon me. But at the risk of sounding glib, I’m somewhat puzzled by the June 28 letter writer who said she was so upset by a spa experience that she wouldn’t stay at a certain hotel henceforth.

Yet she admitted that she’d stayed there “the last 20 years”? Go figure.

Were I a hotel property owner with an on-site spa, I would love to have a customer like this writer who was loyal to me for (count ‘em) 19 years out of 20, before her sudden defection and public outburst.

David Tulanian

Los Angeles