YtravelF

With all of Delta's moves to rein in it's customers SkyMile balances and earning potential, are we seeing the first ever attempt by an airline to deflate their mileage program by limiting the number of miles in circulation?

If this works, it could potentially eliminate future award chart increases and allow the SkyMiles program to settle into a level of stability unmatched by virtually any other frequent flyer program. My basis for this hypothesis are the following moves Delta has made in the past few months:

-Miles by ticket price: This is the biggest move they could've made to reduce miles in circulation. With frequent flyers stripped of the ability to earn miles on the cheap, and with the breakeven threshold now at roughly twenty cents per mile, this should allow the outstanding SkyMiles inventory to vastly deplete over the next few years.

-250k limits on Amex transfers: Another huge and unexpected move. By limiting transfers to 250k (not even enough for two TATL J tix at anything but the lowest saver level, Delta has limited high net worth customers from snapping up expensive tickets with miles, and thus limited Amex's huge Membership Rewards liability to a quantifiable amount.

-Eliminating the mileage bonus for centurion customers: Pretty self evident. No longer will Amex's most loyal customers be rewarded with the same benefits as Delta's most loyal customers. Since these customers also tend to be high spenders, the point mentioned above becomes even more relevant to these customers.

-The new five tier award chart: The new award chart should allow Delta to better price awards along a more rational demand curve. While this will be bad for SkyMiles members, it may allow to Delta to assign different values to miles redeemed when they come off the books, potentially helping Delta profits in the long run.

If anyone has other data points to add to this theory, by all means. I'm sure the haters will be all over this post soon enough, but I thought it was worth sharing this theory with the multitude of frequent flyers who have been left searching for answers after these latest moves surrounding Amex.

javabytes

I doubt it. The fact that SkyMiles are now purely pegged to dollars spent (whether for BIS travel or throu Amex) while redemption rates are still fixed means inflation is unavoidable.

Sabai

Plus DL is positively incontinent when it comes to spewing miles for shopping, dining, renting a car, blowing your nose, etc.

I foresee no imminent shortage of pesos.

vxmike

There is no way they'll allow it when there are still loads of 'gamers' like me foolishly sitting in 450K miles and no immediate trips to book soon. There's probably a ton of folks in the same position.

VegasJosh

I question your math.....they are limiting based on dollars spent in Y but but giving more for J. Assuming someone that is a PM is flying LAX-NRT for 1k is now only going to get 7K miles as opposed to 16k or so but the person flying in J paying 8k for the ticket is getting 75k as opposed to 24k. So are they really giving more miles or just giving the same amount just to different people?

Also what makes you think they won't have award miles go up? is there ANYTHING about the past that say they wont charge more next year? or the year after?

indufan

Hahaha....vxmike hangs out of FT and thinks that sitting on 450K is gaming.

davetravels

My only comment refers to the OP's handle, as I have never seen it appear here before.

I think it's safe to say that, rather than YtravelF, most here would reverse it to:

FtravelInY

Bear4Asian

Thanks for the morning laugh! 👦

Ditto. Ditto.

StayingHomeIsBetter

You do have a way of turning a phrase.

The BNA Gentleman

and I just want to see what a million looks like in my account (200k left)