Originally Posted by tennisguru

I also just completed the course, and it was not nearly as painful. I spent probably 1 hour actually focusing on the program. You can skip all the videos and the other stuff clicks through pretty quickly. Some questions where you have to type in an answer but just a couple of sentences suffice. For the group phone chat I simply had that in the background while I worked on my taxes. My one-on-one phone call was 14 minutes. So I got $1000 for an hour, maybe 1:15 of actual time. Yes there are hoops you have to jump through, but if you're spending 4-5 hours on everything you're doing it wrong.

Originally Posted by game

Old news here but figured I'd follow up with my experience with enrolling in and taking Delta's Emergency Savings Program (ESP) course through Fidelity. It was death by power point. Probably 4-5 hours worth of CBTs in total which are dolled out over a couple months as you progress through the course. There was an hour long listening-in-only phone conference hosted by Fidelity. On the day I forgot about the conference and joined it in the final 20 minutes, but still got credit for attending the phone conference and was able to move forward. The final hoop to jump through was a 30 minute one-on-one phone call with a Financial Coach from Fidelity. Our conversation was brief because I made it known early on that I had most of my ducks already in a row concerning the saving techniques they push through the course.

Now that the money has all settled in the cash account you're guided to set up inside your Netbenefits Account at the beginning of the course I've set up a transfer to my external bank account. No strings attached to the money, once it's in your account it's yours to do with as you please. Because you're also required to set up a $$ amount to save while you go through the course which comes out of each paycheck and is deposited into that cash account I ended the course with over $1700 in the account. That money should be in my external bank account before the end of the month.

The whole process took approx four months.

Did I learn anything new by taking the ESP course? Not really.
Are there people at Delta who benefit from the course? Sure. I'd say it's a valuable offering from Delta and Fidelity to eligible employees.
Would I do it again? Yep! Next time I'll have my oldest child (under 10) do it together with me and at the end they'll get the bonus money.

Happy to answer any questions.

Originally Posted by notEnuf

Did my counselling call and nothing new yet. Unable to move to the next. How long after the call before you could continue? 2 more videos to go???

Originally Posted by tennisguru

It was about 3 weeks after the call that I got the email to move onto the next step. There are no videos after the one-on-one call, just a quick program survey.

Originally Posted by DryClutch

So i'm probably missing something here, but this little program eventually gets you $1,000 if you jump through all these silly little hoops? CBT's, phone counseling session, etc. Or is it some way to try to rope you into doing long term business with Fidelity? I guess I shouldn't be turning my nose up at $1,000, but when I think of "emergency savings", it's sure a hell of a lot more than $1,000.

Originally Posted by tennisguru

This program is not really designed for high net worth/high income people like most pilots (although there are definitely broke pilots out there). The program is more built towards lower income people with little to no savings and gives some basic financial literacy lessons. I have no doubt that there are a lot of people employed at Delta across different divisions who could really benefit from this program. Having said that, it's a pretty low effort way to make a grand. It's about the equivalent of 5:30 of my flight pay rate, and it's way easier than commuting in/out and flying a one-day trip.

Also, after the first one-on-one they will try to set you up with a phone meeting with a Fidelity advisor in your area. I just let them schedule it and you get a confirmation email where I just canceled it with zero hassle. No interaction with Fidelity past that unless you specifically want more coaching/advising.

Originally Posted by samimifs

where do I go to initiate this process and take the course? Is it a link on DeltaNet?

Originally Posted by DryClutch

So i'm probably missing something here, but this little program eventually gets you $1,000 if you jump through all these silly little hoops? CBT's, phone counseling session, etc. Or is it some way to try to rope you into doing long term business with Fidelity? I guess I shouldn't be turning my nose up at $1,000, but when I think of "emergency savings", it's sure a hell of a lot more than $1,000.