lwildernorva

I'll try not to get too far into OMNI territory here, but most libertarians I am aware of are what I call I-bertarians. In other words (and to try to keep this out of OMNI territory), GTL thinks that if there were no government, no arbitrary big companies, and no society, I would be allowed to do what I want: which is to sell my award services in a free market where fixed award charts and arcane rules would make it better for the average guy to need my services to walk his way through booking an award flight. And I can make money.

It's (and it's where I'm veering back into OMNI territory) all the Ayn Rand wannabees want to be. And, from my perspective, where GTL goes off the rails is ignoring that there is a government (and understanding the inefficiencies in any large organization) that is essentially us, there are big companies, and there is a society. So, the Great Thought Leader tries to play both sides of the fence: arguing for an award system that makes his business necessary while arguing against a likely foreseeable free market evolution of the award system.

GUWonder

Delta already had dynamic pricing as an additional offering to supplement the since-masked capacity-controlled award charts. "Pay with miles" type options are that.

Why should he support Delta providing that "pay with miles" path when it provides on average a return less than the value of cash-back card programs and other alternatives? Because of DL credit card kickbacks? I am glad he doesn't support DL's consumer-unfriendly SkyMiles shenanigans despite the credit card referral fees.

nsx

GUWonder, that is a GREAT observation!

Delta must have concluded that chart-based redemption at traditional prices could not be maintained profitably. I don't understand the reasoning, but I wonder how in the world it would not apply even more strongly to redemption for travel on partner airlines. Gary seems to be hinting that the next shoe to drop is taking the value out of partner redemptions.

It's almost as if Delta wants to drive all its customers to Citbank's Double Cash card.

GUWonder

I have no doubt that DL will hit hard with devaluing the DL partner airline awards too.

DL did not conclude that chart-based redemption at traditional mileage prices could not be maintained profitably; rather, it could be maintained profitably. But this isn't about maintaining profits and profit margin; instead it's about hitting targeted objectives to increase pay offs for current management and (non-longer-terms) shareholders.

Being profitable isn't sufficient; it's a matter of being more profitable than before. That is why devaluations of the program and its peers is so very expected from the consumer perspective. It doesn't take a thought leader in anything to understand this.

kokonutz

As I mentioned in the DL forum recently, as an airline agnostic I quite like DL's apparent move from an elite/miles focused airline to one that offers good fares in premium cabins.

That's exactly why I am typing this from DTW terminal C right now instead of ORD terminal F.

GUWonder

As an equal opportunity critic of airlines -- something that certainly doesn't hold true for some bloggers -- I find that DL's no more or less a fan of offering cheaper fares in premium cabins than other airlines.

kokonutz

Hey, you leave AA ALONE.

We thought leaders still trust AA doncha know!

DL may not be a fan of offering cheaper fares I premium cabins but in my anecdotal experience they have been beating the pants off the competition in price in domestic F all year. And best of all when a DL domestic F ticket connects to a baby bird with no F I still get SKY boarding priority. On UA my priority on a baby bird connection reverts to my 'lowly' Gold Million Miler status: group 2.

So while I fully understand why Gary is slut shaming DL, ther IS another side to the coin: if DL wants to replace upgraders and award ticket pax with premium revenue pax they are going to have to compete for thAt business! ^

whlinder

LOL

Anyway, I don't have a blog or whatever it is that makes one a Thought Leader, let alone a Great Thought Leader, but I would assume than an announcement on Delta tying compensation guarantees to Corporate Operational Performance for corporate sales agreements would be a thought leadery thing to write about.

While it's crazy that the controller of an alternate currency wants to control it as the free market says they can, resulting in many blistering blog posts on Skymiles, I would expect something written, or even linked, about DL calling out its biggest rivals where it hurts the most: at the corporate sales level.

oliver2002

Thought leader gets good advice

Raffles

Someone once posted on Head for Points that I used too many commas ....

The thing is, when I looked at it closely I decided that he might have been right and have been cutting back ever since!

nsx

Obviously a punctilious reader!

chad75

What a shame. I know, unlike lesser blogs, The Thought Leader doesn't have to rely on guest writers etc, but I would have loved to get David H's view on the value of IHG points or Charles' photos of the AA Flagship lounge at LAX

oliver2002

The recent 550EUR promo/mistake fare from OSL to SFO in J was also not mentioned...

GUWonder

Are the VFTW comments moderated to remove non-spam comments that are on topic? Or are moderated comments of non-spam nature just slow to show there and/or sometimes subject to extra hurdles before being published?

Today in the comments section of a VFTW blog entry -- in the course of an exchange (there about the history of the SkyPesons terminology) between the blogger and another person -- I posted about how DL SkyPesos was the successor to "Delta pesos", with the latter certainly not invented by the VFTW blogger. I even presented evidence showing that "delta pesos" was in use at least some months before the December 2009 reference (from Flyertalk) to SkyPesos made by the VFTW blogger and which was put up by the blogger in the comments section to claim credit as the creator of the "SkyPesos" term.

I don't know what I want to make of that, but it is interesting to me.

kokonutz

Sometimes comments have to be approved by Gary.

But there's a weird thing there where if I comment as 'kokonutz' the post never appears. If I post as 'kokomutz' it does.

Maybe our user names are blocked!?

Nah, your comments are up there.

FWIW, Gary's not an AEI guy. He's a Koch/libertarian guy.

And it seems really important to him to have been the one to take Delta Pesos and made it SkyPesos. So we ought to just give it to him. ^

Of course, if I was Delta I'm not sure I'd even bother messing with the Freddies since it's operator hates them so much.