Anyone who is a member of a frequent flier program knows that there are a lot of emails involved. Generally, it’s “Come to Vegas,” “Sign-up for this Credit Card,” or “Fly to Europe.” Pretty standard airline marketing stuff. But I must admit, Delta SkyMiles threw me for a loop today. Forget about Orlando. New York is a thing of the past. Never mind about Vegas. Come to Eureka! Yep, Delta contacted all of its SkyMiles members (millions) to get them jazzed about dropping everything and heading out to Eureka…

Eureka is in California for those of you who are scratching your heads. Admittedly, I first thought Delta Air Lines wanted me to fly to the fictional city in the Sci-Fi Channel show, “Eureka” where gravity can pull you into the sky and nothing is what it seems.

Once I figured out the SkyMiles folks hadn’t totally lost their minds, I looked into the deals a bit further. There are good travel deals to Eureka from a variety of cities including Salt Lake, Phoenix, Denver, and Dallas-Ft Worth. For a second, I thought about taking a trip. Maybe I could visit the Sequoia Park Zoo or the Discovery Museum.

That actually sounds great. And I am positive that Eureka is a lovely city. I’m just baffled by SkyMiles contacting so many people about such a small city (the population of Eureka is about 42,000).

Who knows, maybe it’s the greatest marketing ploy in frequent flier history, and everyone will pass on the top destinations for a change. Or maybe it’s just one of those funny little things that airlines do that make no sense. Or, come to think of it, maybe the Eureka Chamber of Commerce shelled out a ton of money to get a hold of all of us on the SkyMiles list. Hmmm. How much would that cost?

I don’t know why they chose to do it. I do know that I am definitely going to check my next SkyMiles email to see what other crazy stuff Delta is coming up with, though. Ahhh–that’s it. They got me.